Russia and Europe

RUSSIA AND EUROPE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

MODERN RUSSIA

New Edition, containing a new Preface
by the Author. Cloth, 5s. net.

RUSSIA AND THE
GREAT WAR

Second Impression. Cloth, 10s. 6d. net.
BY TAT I AN A ALEXIN SKY

WITH THE RUS-
SIAN WOUNDED

With an Introductory Letter by Gregor
Alexinsky. Cloth, 2s. 6d. net.

T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., LONDON

. 'Em

RUSSIA AND EUROPE

BY

GREGOR ALEXINSKY

Ex -Deputy to the Duma

TRANSLATED FROM THE MANUSCRIPT

BY

BERNARD MIALL

,L'

LONDON

1

FISHER

UNWIN

LTD.

1

ADELPHI

TERRACE,

w.c.

First published in iqij

(AH rights reserved)

TO
MY WIFE

G. A.

PREFACE

In Modern Russia I dealt particularly with all that
distinguishes Russian life from the life of Europe.
But even then I felt the necessity of presenting the
other aspect of the matter— of showing how Russia
has Europeanized herself, of summing up the action
of European influences in the past and the present
of the great Slav Empire.

The happenings of the present time, and the par-
ticipation of Russia in the formidable struggle against
Prussian Imperialism, increase the importance of the
question of the relations between Russia and the West.

I shall be happy if . the present volume will help
the English public to study these relations.

G. A.

PS. — My sincere thanks are due to my translator,
Mr. Bernard Miall, for his valuable collaboration, which
has so greatly contributed to the success which my
works upon Russia have obtained with my English
readers.

CONTENTS

PART THE FIRST

THE MATERIAL BONDS BETWEEN
RUSSIA AND EUROPE

PAGE

Chapter I 17

I. The foreign elements in the origins of Russian history.

II. The Byzantine influence — The opinion of a modern
Russian philosopher.

Chapter II 22

I. The appearance of true European elements — The Han-
seatic League and its'commercial relations with Novgorod.

II. Europeans in Russia under Ivan III and Ivan the
Terrible — The English merchants. III. The eighteenth
century and the development of trade between Russia and
Europe — State monopolies and commercial capitalism.

Chapter III 30

I. The period of Peter the Great — The problem of Euro-
peanizing the national economy of Russia. II. The fore-
runners— The basis of the economic reforms of Peter I.

III. Did Peter the Great wish to denationalize Russia ? —
National and international motives in the programme of
reforms devised by Peter the Great — Russian mercantilism.

IV. The balance-sheet of industrial Europeanization under
Peter the Great — Contradiction between the European and
Russian elements in Peter's work.

Chapter IV 39

I. Foreign influences under the successors of Peter the
Great — The conflict between Western tendencies and the
Russian system of government — Catherine II — The ukase
of 1763. II. European colonists in the Russian countryside
— Why is the Russian moujik poor and the immigrant
farmer rich? III. The true method of " Europeanizing "
the economic system of Russia.

0

10 CONTENTS

PACK

Chapter V 47

I. European influence and the national economy of the
Russia of to-day — The increase of imports and exports —
The general character of Russia's foreign trade. II.
Human immigration from Europe into Russia— Its com-
position. III. The penetration of European capital into
Russia. IV. Its forms and its dimensions — State loans and
private industry — National capital and foreign capital in
Russia. V. The distribution of foreign capital among the
various branches of industry. VI. German capitalism and
its influence on the Russian economy.

PART THE SECOND
RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE

Chapter I 67

I. Is the Russian people warlike? II. A little philology
and arithmetic.

Chapter II 74

I. The struggle for the shores of the Baltic Sea as a
" window facing Europe " — The Livonian wars of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. II. The " Period of Dis-
turbances"— The wars of the seventeenth century— The
Russo-Swedish War under Peter the Great — Its results and
its influence.

Chapter III 86

I. The war of 1812 and the Russo-Swedish War. II. The
causes of the war against Napoleon — Economic relations
between Russia and England — The "Continental Blockade"
and its effects on Russian economy. III. Two periods of
the war of 1812 — Official patriotism and popular patriotism.
IV. The Holy Alliance and Legitimism— The Russian
reaction. V. The effects of the war on the people and the
" intellectuals "—The Decembrists. VI. The effects of the
war in Poland.

Chapter IV 99

I. The Crimean War— Its origins. II. Causes of defeat—
The contrast between the old Russia and the new Europe.
III. The Eastern question— The Slav problem and the
Europeanization of Russia.

CONTENTS 11

PACK

Chapter V 109

I. The war with Europeanized Japan — The Asiatic
question. II. The German barrier isolating Russia from
Europe— The Baltic Sea and the Straits — The great
European conflict, and its general import from a Russian
point of view.

PART THE THIRD
THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE

Chapter I 117

I. A European State in ancient Russia : the Free City of
Novgorod. II. The birth of the absolute monarchy and
its conflict with feudalism — Western influences in Russian
feudalism.

Chapter II 122

I. Military power and the reform of the State administra-
tion under Peter I — Swedish influences. II. The palace
revolutions of the eighteenth century and the influence of
Europe. III. German domination, and the anti-Germanic
movement under Anna — The participation of France and
England in the coup d'ttat of 1741 — A Duke of Holstein the
Russian Tsar — His Prussophilia. IV. The conspiracy of
1801 and British diplomacy.

Chapter III 137

I. The renaissance of feudalism — Catherine II and the
European sources of her ideas. II. Attempts to Euro-
peanize Russia under Alexander I — Anglophilia — Central
institutions — Speransky and his French loans. III. The
Decembrists — The European elements in their ideology and
their actions — The Spanish model — The reaction of Austro-
German origin —The Baltic nobles crush the insurrection
of the Decembrists.

Chapter IV 153

I. The Tartaro- Prussian Empire under Nicolas I — The
knout and the shpitzruteny — The necessity of reforms. II.
The "Period of the Great Reforms" and its European
sources — A fresh step to the rear.

12 CONTENTS

FAOX

Chapter V 162

I. The problem of national representation under Alexander
II and the constitutional movement. II. The Duma —
Foreign elements in the representative system in Russia —
Is the political mentality of the Russian people Asiatic or
European ? III. Some documents.

PART THE FOURTH

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN RUSSIAN
LITERATURE

Chapter I 181

I. The theory of races — Non-Russian blood in the veins
of Russian writers. II. The formation of the literary
language and its European ingredients.

Chapter II 190

I. The literature of the people and the literature of the
cultivated writers — The first Western influences. II. The
importation from Europe of literary forms and subjects.

Chapter III 198

I. Various European influences in Russian literature —
Classicism, sentimentalism, and romanticism — Shakespeare
in Russia. II. Russian realism. III. Byronism in Russia —
Dostoievsky's opinion of Byronism.

PART THE FIFTH
IDEALS

Chapter I 211

I. The first collision between nationalist ideals and
Western influences — The first Russian zapadnik, II. Two
Muscovite imigrls. III. The first Slavophile in Russia.

Chapter II 224

I. The impossibility of a compromise between Muscovite

Russia and European tendencies. II. The Russian Vol-

, taireans — The " historical superfluities" — The opinions of

> Klutshevsky and Herzen on the Russian Voltaireans. 111.

Radistshev and Novikov.

CONTENTS 13

PAOB

Chapter III 236

I. The nationalist reaction under Catherine II and Alex-
ander I — Shtshcrbatov and Karamzin — The Russian re-
actionaries and the French Revolution — The royalist
imigr&s. II. The positive influence of the ideals of the
French Revolution — Some opinions.

Chapter IV ... 249

I. Catholic influence in Russia — Tshaadaev and his philo-
sophy of history. II. Vladimir Soloviev and the ideal of
the Universal Church.

Chapter V 266

I. The idealist philosophy of Germany — Hegelianism. II.
Bielinsky — The influence of Schelling and Fichte. III.
Bielinsky a Hegelian of the " Right " and a conservative
— His antipathy for French ideals. IV. His conversion —
French influences — Social aspirations.

Chapter VI 281

I. Bakunin, the Germanophile and conservative. II. The
Slavophiles — Their attitude toward the Europeanization of
Russia. III. European elements in the Slavianophihtvo.
IV. The Slavophiles and the zapadniki. V. Herzen's
ideological and moral crisis.

Chapter VII 304

I. Dostoievsky and his contradictory qualities. II. The
disintegration of the Slavianophihtvo — Katkov, Pobiedo-
nostzev, and Leontiev. III. The Occidental sources of
reactionary nationalism in Russia.

Chapter VIII 312

I. The zapadnitshestvo triumphant. II. Nihilism — Its
European origin — Dobrolubov and Pisarev — The " destruc-
tion of aesthetics" — Nihilism and Anarchism — Pisarev's
opinion of the French and English — The social problem
and "aesthetics." III. Tshernyshevsky — His materialism
— The popularization of Occidental ideas — Tshernyshevsky
and Feuerbach— The secularization of Russian thought —
English influences.

14 CONTENTS

TAGE

Chapter IX 324

I. Socialism in Russia — Socialism and religion. II. The
earliest European influences — Saint-Simonism in Russia.
III. Fourier and Robert Owen. IV. The narodnitshestvo and
Marxism— The " Bakunists " in Russia. V. " Blanquism "
in Russia — Terrorism. VI. Philosophy and the reality —
The present situation of the narodnitshestvo and Marxism.

Conclusion 351

Index 353

PART THE FIRST

THE MATERIAL BONDS BETWEEN
RUSSIA AND EUROPE

RUSSIA AND EUROPE

CHAPTER I

I. The foreign elements in the origins of Russian history. II. The
Byzantine influence — The opinion of a modern Russian philo-
sopher.

I

The origins of Russian history present us with two
half-real, half-legendary factors : the foundation of the
first principalities and the " baptism of Russia." In
both popular tradition admitted an active participation
of foreign elements.

According to legend, the Russians of the ninth
century had as yet no organized States, but were living
in discord. Weary of this anarchy, they are said to
have applied to foreign princes (Varangian or Scandi-
navian), and to have said : —

" Our soil is wide and fruitful, but order is lacking
there. Be our princes and come to govern us."

And three Varangian princes are said to have con-
sented to come into Russia and to have founded three
principalities in the north.

Foreigners also created the principality of Kiev,
whose first sovereigns bore names of Scandinavian
origin : as Igor (from Ingvar) and Olga (from
Helghi), etc.

As for the " baptism of Russia," which took place
in the year 988 A.D., popular legend has handed down
the story.

Prince Vladimir the Holy, dissatisfied with the

2 it

13 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

paganism of his subjects, is said to have sought to
put an end thereto. With this object in view, he
is related to have sent into various countries special
envoys who were instructed to make a study of their
religions. The religion, or rather the ritual, which
charmed him most was the Byzantine. Thereupon
Vladimir is reported to have invited the priests of
the various cults to repair to Kiev, there to explain
to him their character and their advantages. As a
result of this competition the Prince of Kiev is said
to have set his choice on the Orthodox Byzantine
Church, which thereupon became the Orthodox Russian
Church.

In order to grasp the possibility of this extraordinary
admixture of Greek and Scandinavian contributions in
the first phase of the historical period, we must
remember that Russia formed the connecting link
between Scandinavia and Byzantium. Thus we may
say that in the dawn of her history Russia served as
intermediary between West and East, if we admit that
her two neighbours represented the two general
types.

But what I chiefly wish to emphasize is the role
of the State in this first introduction of foreign
elements : the Scandinavians entered the State in the
quality of princes and organizers — in short, of
governors ; while the Greeks brought their religion
into the State on the prince's invitation. We shall
see that down to our own days authority in Russia
has continued to favour the foreigner, often even to
the detriment of the native Russian.

II

The bond connecting Scandinavia with Byzantium,
across the wide Russian plain, which embraced two
points of great importance, one in the region of
Novgorod and one in that of Kiev, could not long
hold fast.

The Scandinavian influence, powerful enough at the

THE MATERIAL BONDS 19

outset,1 waned very rapidly ; for shortly after " th«
coming of the Varangian princes " (in 862 A.D., accord-
ing to the Russian chronicles) no trace of their northern
principalities was left. Some centuries later, it is true,
Russia was again to encounter Scandinavia ; not the
Scandinavia which sent her brigand- princes to govern
her, but the kingdom of Sweden, with its twelfth
Charles, the object of the simultaneous hatred and
admiration of Peter the Great.

In the meantime Northern Russia was subjected to
Western influence in another form : by its close rela-
tions with the commercial League of the M Free
Towns " of the Hansa, which greatly contributed to
the development of two of the great Russian Free Towns
— Novgorod and Pskov, and to which I shall refer
later on.

The Byzantine influence succumbed before the
invasion of the Asiatic hordes, which seized upon
Southern Russia, thus cutting it off from Byzantium.
But the Eastern Empire, for the Russia of the tenth
and eleventh centuries, was the road to the civilization
of the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. Hence the
interruption of relations with Byzantium was greatly
to be deplored. The celebrated Russian historian S.
Soloviev says in this connection : M The nomads not
merely attacked Russia, but they cut her off from
the shores of the Black Sea and destroyed her com-
munications with Byzantium. . . . Asiatic barbarism
strove to deprive Russia of all the roads and all the
breathing spaces opening upon cultivated Europe."

Another great Russian historian, V. Klutshevsky, ex-
presses the same idea : "A thousand years of the
hostile neighbourhood of the rapacious Asiatic nomads
will by itself justify many times over the absence of
the European spirit in the history of Russia."

■ The title of kniaz (prince) which the Russian Slavs employed to
designate the head of the State is borrowed from the Scandinavian,
and is only a modification of the Scandinavian title of kunning.

20 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

In my Modern Russia ■ I have already explained
the general consequences entailed by the invasion of
the steppes of Southern Russia by the Asiatic hordes.
We know that the principal result was the displace-
ment of the centre of economic and political gravity,
which shifted from the region of Kiev to that of Moscow
and Vladimir. Muscovite Russia was for a long time
deprived of her relations with Byzantium, and lost even
all contact with the Russia of the South-West — that
is, with Volhynian and Galician Russia, the most highly
Europeanized and civilized of all the principalities of
the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It was at this time
that Volhynia and Galicia began to lead a separate
existence, and at a later date were subjected to the
influence of Poland.

As to the Byzantine influence in itself, and the loss
which Russia must have suffered in being deprived of
this influence in the twelfth century, the various Russian
authors are in disagreement. A contemporary publi
and philosopher of some considerable repute, Professor
Boulgakov (a Neo-Slavophil), endeavoured quite recently
to attribute a great importance to the rdle of the
Byzantine factor : —

" The Oriental orthodoxy of Byzantium contains, in
potential, all Hellenism in its immortal worth. In
general Hellenism is a principle of natural orthodoxy.
. . . This is why, in the heritage of Greek civiliza-
tion, our own share is richer than that of the West,
the legatee of Hellenism by an indirect path, by the
intervention of the Roman Church, and, at a later
date only, of Humanism by a pagan restoration." 2

To this pretentious assertion, which seeks to invest
Russia with a kind of supremacy over Western Europe,
we can easily oppose a few positive and decisive facts.

In the first place, it is not true that Byzantium
received the legacy of pure Hellenism while the West
knew it only by a deformation. On the contrary,

• Modern Russia, trans. Bernard Miall, T. Fisher Unwin, 1014.

• S. Boulgakov, The War and the Russian Mind (Moscow, 1915), p. 33.

THE MATERIAL BONDS 21

it was Byzantium which distorted the original
Hellenism. For the democracies of antiquity it sub-
stituted a semi-Oriental monarchical regime ; for free-
dom of belief, expressing itself in a free art which
seized the imagination, a dry and scholastic " ortho-
doxy " which amounted to iconoclasm. There was no
real return to " Hellenism " save by that very " pagan
restoration " which was the Renaissance.

Assertions such as those of M. Boulgakov would
induce us to believe that the influence of Byzantium
on ancient Russia was purely spiritual, and was destined
to teach the " eternal meanings of Hellenism." In
reality, the Greeks who came to Russia and the Russians
who went to Tsargrad (Constantinople) were not con-
cerned with these abstractions. The true motive of
their relations was commercial, as was the principal
motive of the relations between Russia and Scandinavia,
for the Scandinavian dynasties, the creators of the first
Russian principalities, were at once brigands and
merchants. It was by following in the footsteps of
the Greek merchants that the Greek priests brought
orthodoxy to Kiev. And if the Byzanto-Russian and
Russo-Scandinavian relations were broken off in the
twelfth century, it was because the commercial high-
way " from the Greeks to the Varangians " was closed.

CHAPTER II

I. The appearance of true European elements — The Hanseatic League
and its commercial relations with Novgorod. II. Europeans in
Russia under Ivan III and Ivan the Terrible — The English
merchants. III. The eighteenth century and the development of
trade between Russia and Europe — State monopolies and commer-
cial capitalism.

I

While the southern regions remained completely
isolated by the invasion of the nomads, the north of
Russia maintained and developed its exchanges with
the West : in the thirteenth century, for example, the
Hanseatic League held a considerable place in the
trade of Novgorod.

Modern historians have proved that even at the
period of the principality of Kiev foreign trade
was assuming a prominent place in Russian life.
For example, M. Nicolas Rojkov states that during
this period agriculture and industry occupied a
secondary position. Hunting and agriculture, or rather
the gathering of honey in the woods, were the principal
occupations. Foreign trade, on the contrary, or, more
precisely, the exportation through the princes and their
companions of what they obtained by hunting, honey,
and all that the princes received from the population
as dani (taxes paid in kind), was much in vogue.
The aristocracy sent their merchandise to Byzantium,
where they exchanged it for weapons, wine, stuffs, etc.
But these relations, confined to a minority, were of no
immediate interest to the great masses of the people.

In Novgorod and Pskov the position was quite

■

THE MATERIAL BONDS 28

different. There the bulk of the population traded
and lived by trade. Agriculture occupied a secondary
place in the regions of Novgorod and of Pskov as
well as in that of Kiev. The activities of these regions
were absorbed by foreign trade. The local chronicles,
and the popular poetry also, give irrefutable evidence of
this fact. Who is the principal hero of the bylinas—
that is, the epic songs of Novgorod? Sadko the Rich,
the merchant, mighty not by the sword but by the purse.

The trade of Novgorod extended over a much vaster
region, and included a much larger quantity of products,
than the trade of Kiev. Skins, butter, fat, meat, flax,
honey, wool, wheat, etc., were bought by the merchants
of Novgorod in various parts of Russia and were sold
or exchanged for foreign merchandise.

" Commercial interests led foreign merchants and
adventurers along the waterways of inland Russia, and
laid the foundations of the Russian State. On the
success of external trade was based the ephemeral
wealth of the region of Kiev, which became im-
poverished and lost its political influence with the
disorganization of this trade. What really was the
importance, in the trade of Kiev, of the foreign
merchants, we can only imagine and conjecture, owing
to the lack of precise data. But as regards the role
of foreign intermediaries in the trade of Novgorod
it is already perfectly evident. The 4 Gothic ' and
1 German ' ' courts ' or 4 yards,' founded in Novgorod
in the twelfth century by the merchants of Gothland
and Liibeck, and united in the fourteenth century under
the direction of the Free Towns of the Hanseatic
League, monopolized, for some centuries, all the Russian
trade passing through Novgorod. The attempt on the
part of the men of Novgorod to found a Russian com-
pany which should trade with foreign countries did
not enable them to create their own merchant fleet,
and the oversea voyages of certain Russian merchants
in foreign boats, and even the warehousing of Russian
merchandise in foreign countries, were only the isolated

24 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

attempts of individual venturers. The Novogorodians
had to content themselves with the r61e of monopolist-
middlemen between the buyers of merchandise in
Northern and South-Eastern Russia and the factories
of the Hanseatic League. The foreign trade of Russia
was able to free itself from the Hanseatic domination
only when the foreign competitors of the League came
to its assistance ; when, by their own efforts, they
opened up means of direct access to Russian
merchandise. In the fifteenth century, and early
in the sixteenth, these competitors were the Swedish
traders and the towns of Livonia, which drew the move-
ment of merchandise into another direction than that
familiar to the trade of the Hansa towns. In their
footsteps appeared the representatives of the principal
capitalistic nations of the new Europe, whose merchan-
dise had until then formed the object of the Hansa
trade. These were the English and the Dutch." '

At the same time, the city of Novgorod began to
make way, in the matter of external trade, for the
city of Moscow.

II

Under Ivan III (1452-1505) Russia was delivered
from the Tartar yoke, and under Ivan the Terrible
(1534-89) the principality of Moscow established
direct economic relations with Europe. In the fifteenth
century there came to Moscow those European traders
and artisans who " laid the foundations of the principal
urban trades." The first comers were for the most
part Italians. Architects, engineers, experienced
physicians, masters and artisans of various crafts,
were called from Italy to Moscow. Among them were
celebrated masters like Fioraventi-Aristoteles (of Venice
or Bologna), Petro Antonio, and Marcus Aloys 1
Aristoteles taught the Muscovites how to make bricks
and lime and the use of machinery ; he founded cannon

* P. Milukov, Studies in the History of Russian Culture, I
pp. 105-6 (1st cd., Russian, Petersburg, 1900).

THE MATERIAL BONDS 25

and constructed a floating bridge near Novgorod. " He
was the renovator of many crafts in Russia."

From this time onward the influence of Europe in the
economic life of Russia increased by leaps and bounds.

In the sixteenth century, under Ivan the Terrible,
Russia became for the first time the theatre of an
energetic rivalry between the traders of Germany and
England. The Germans had long maintained relations
with Russia by way of Novgorod. The English arrived
in Russia by chance : an English expedition went astray
in the Arctic Ocean and eventually reached the Russian
coast. The Tsar, Ivan the Terrible, having received
the news of the strangers' arrival, expressed to them
his ardent desire that permanent relations might be
established between their country and his kingdom,
and the town of Arkangelsk or Archangel became
the base of the Anglo-Russian trade.

In 1566 Ivan the Terrible addressed himself to
Elizabeth through the British Ambassador, Jenkinson,
begging her to send to Russia some good artisans and
craftsmen. The Queen granted his request, and in
1567 sent him an English physician, Reynolds;
a pharmacist, Thomas Curvvin ; an engineer, Humfry
Lock, with his assistant, John Fenton ; a goldsmith,
Thomas Green ; and other specialists.

In 1569 the Tsar granted some English manu-
facturers a patent for the establishment of a metal-
lurgical works at Vytchegda, in the Government of
Vologda. The English penetrated yet farther, into the
Ural Mountains, and prospected for iron-mines in the
region of Perm.

Ivan the Terrible also sent a special envoy to
Germany to obtain the same services from the German
Emperor, and to recruit in Germany some hundreds of
" learned men, artists, and artisans."

But the preference of Ivan IV was given to the
English, and the English merchants, thanks to privi-
leges granted to them by the Tsar, entered the lists
in opposition to the German traders, who were grouped

26 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

under the Hanseatic League and who traded through
Novgorod. The importation of English cloth and linen
was fatal to German competition, already enfeebled
by the general decline of the economic activity of
Novgorod. This market was ruined by the Muscovite
sovereigns, who could not endure the existence of a
free city, with a government almost republican, side
by side with their own monarchical State.

The sympathies of Ivan the Terrible for the English
were such that he was called "the English Tsar,"
and in the time of Elizabeth, England declared that
in no other country did her trade bring her such profits
as in Russia.1

Ill

I have explained, in my Modern Russia, the general
nature of the economic evolution, or revolution rather,
which occurred in the Russia of the sixteenth century.
Then it was that the internal market was unified, and
relations and stable connections were established
between the various regions of the country, under
the influence of an intensive commercial exchange.

The foreign element played a most important part
in the birth of the new state of affairs, as it greatly
contributed to the development of the movement of
trade along the two principal trade routes : that from
Novgorod to Moscow and that from Archangel to
Moscow.

But at the beginning of the eighteenth century this
economic development was interrupted by a great
political crisis, known as the " Period of Disturbances,"
which lasted until the year 1613, and the in>tallation
on the Muscovite throne of the Tsar Mikhail Feodoro-
vitch, the first representative of the House of Romanov.

Under this Tsar and his successor, Alexei Mikl.
vitch, the economic relations with the outer world v
rapidly multiplied and became increasingly compk

' G. Schultze-Giivernitz, Studies in the National and Political Economy
0/ Russia (Russian trans., Petersburg, 1900), p. 6.

THE MATERIAL BONDS 27

Among the most noteworthy phenomena of the
economic history of Russia in the seventeenth century
we find, in the first place, the multiplication of exchanges
with Europe. After the English, who contrived to
establish their factories along the entire route from
Archangel to Moscow, other Europeans began to trade
in Russia : and firstly the Dutch, who used the route
from the Arctic Ocean and the White Sea, as did
the English, and also the Baltic route, as did the
Germans, the Danes, and the Swedes. As early as
1603 we find an English writer complaining that after
seventy years of extensive trade with Russia the
English were beginning to be outstripped by the
Dutch. At the end of the sixteenth century a report
was presented to the States-General of the Nether-
lands, whose author asserted that the maritime trade
with Russia might be as profitable to Dutch traders
as the trade with Spain — that is, with America, through
the medium of Spain. " Neither Germany nor our
Netherlands," he positively stated, " can dispense with
trading with Russia." Russia had therefore become,
at this period, a necessary factor of the world's trade.

Muscovite Russia, in the seventeenth century, bene-
fited by international exchanges in a twofold manner.
On the one hand, she served as a means of com-
munication between West and East, Europe and Asia.
She bought Oriental merchandise (for example, silk,
in Persia) and delivered it to Western commerce.
Silk occupying a place of enormous importance in the
commercial life of the time, both private individuals
and European Governments endeavoured more than
once to obtain free transit through Russia for their
communications with Persia, the principal source of
this precious commodity.

In 1 61 4 a representative of England (John Merik)
came to demand, in the name of his king, the right
to make use of the Volga highway. In 1629 a French
ambassador presented a similar claim. In 1630 the
Dutch followed suit. But the Muscovite Government

28 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

invited all these claimants to procure their Persian
goods by buying them of the Russians.

The traders of the duchy of Holstein were more
fortunate : they obtained the monopoly of the trade
with Persia for an annual payment to Russia of
600,000 efimoks — about 5,000,000 roubles. But it
appeared that M in Holstein theory was stronger than
practice, and that the folk of this country knew more
of ciphering than of payment. When it came to paying,
the necessary money was lacking, and the ambitious
enterprise came to a very pitiable end in a diplo-
matic quarrel between the Government of the Tsar
Mikhail and the Duke Frederick." '

In general the Government preferred not to allow
Europeans to cross its territory in order to reach its
eastern frontiers, being loth to lose the profits which
the trade with Asia assured to the Treasury. It even
went so far as to seek to monopolize, for its own
profit, the exportation and sale to foreign countries
of 'a portion of the native commodities, notably of skins
and articles made of leather, furs, caviare, wheat, etc.

In 1630 the States-General of the Netherlands pro-
posed through a special ambassador an ambitious plan
to exploit and " valorize," by means of Dutch capital,
the agricultural and forestal resources of Russia. It
was proposed to grow vast crops of wheat for ex-
portation, and also to exploit the vast forests lying
along the banks of the Northern Dvina. But the
Government decided to keep the trade in Russian pro-
ducts in its own hands. It admitted the principle
of the monopoly while preferring to apply it on its
own account. It also established a series of com-
mercial regies — for example, that of alcohol — which was
resuscitated by Count Witte at the end of the nineteenth
century and abolished in 1 91 4 at the beginning of
the war.

In the exploitation of these rigies the Government,
in the seventeenth century, employed the wealthy
' M. Pokrovsky, Russian History, vol. i. p. 95 (Russian ed.).

THE MATERIAL BONDS 20

merchants as its agents and representatives. Thei«
intermediaries made large private profits by the
purchase and sale of the State commodities. If, as
an English author says, " the Tsar was the first
merchant in his dominions," other merchants also
enriched themselves by monopolizing foreign trade, and
they began to form a powerful corporation of capitalists,
to which, moreover, foreigners trading with Russia had
access, sometimes holding an important place therein.
These foreigners, with more experience and capital,
became the rivals even of the Russians, and in certain
respects supplanted them : for instance, in the last
quarter of the seventeenth century, Kilburger reported
that all the trade of Archangel was centred in the
hands of a few Dutchmen and merchants of Ham-
burg and Bremen, who had their representatives and
their clerks in Moscow.

At this time there was a sudden increase of imports
also, which assumed considerable proportions ; for
example, in 1 67 1 there were imported into Russia,
through the port of Archangel, 2,477, tons of herrings,
783,000 needles, 5 tons of colours, 809 barrels of
indigo, 28,457 reams of paper, 1,957 bars of iron, etc.

Thus, under the influence of foreign relations,
developed that commercial capitalism whose formation
fills the history of the seventeenth century. From
foreign trade it spread to internal trade ; but indus-
trial production, in the seventeenth century, still retained
the characteristics of la petite Industrie, industrial
capitalism dating only from the reign of Peter the
Great. However, in some parts of the south and west
(as in the Ukraine), and above all in those parts which
were in dispute between Russia and Poland, there
existed before the days of Peter the Great an already
somewhat extensive industry (including distilleries,
making a corn spirit, glassworks, foundries, etc.).
Here, again, we mark the increasing influence of
Europe, which traversed Poland and had its two
maritime centres at Riga and Konigsberg.

CHAPTER III

I. The period of Peter the Great — The problem of Europeanizing the
national economy of Russia. II. The forerunners— The basis of
the economic reforms of Peter I. III. Did Peter the Great wish
to denationalize Russia ? — National and international motives In
the programme of reforms devised by Peter the Great — Russian
mercantilism. IV. The balance-sheet of industrial Europeanization
under Peter the Great — Contradiction between the European and
Russian elements in Peter's work.

I

The reforms of Peter the Great have been much dis-
cussed. Some regard his work of reform as a veritable
Europeanization of the country, a cataclysm almost, in
which the ancient Russia, Muscovite and Asiatic,
perished, and out of which emerged the new, civilized,
European Russia. Others, on the contrary, are inclined
to deny that the influence of Peter the Great was of this
character, and to regard it as far more limited in scope.

In addition to this genetic and historical problem, a
question of teleological import arises. Was the work
of Peter the Great really positive and useful? Or, as
many Slavophiles assert, did Russia merely suffer, as
a result of this sovereign's efforts, a depravation of
her normal existence, a morbid and harmful crisis,
artificially provoked in the course of her natural and
logical development?

The best, that is, the surest means of judging objec-
tively these controversial questions, and of deriving solid
instruction therefrom, is to analyse the economic pheno-
mena of the reign of Peter the Great. For although it
is fairly easy to " reform " a few juridical statutes and

H

THE MATERIAL BONDS SI

other external manifestations of the public authority,
the national economy of a people, which is the true
and intimate substance of its social and political exist-
ence, is far more refractory to force. Reforms are
valued by their economic results ; if their imprint on
the life of the people is profound, if they have con-
tributed to its development, we may admit that their
influence is important ; but if they have merely grazed
the surface of life they fall into place merely as
negligible incidents.

II

The first appearance in Russia of industry on the
large scale, the creation of the first large factories and
workshops, is very often referred to the period of Peter
the Great, and is attributed to the exclusive influence
of the foreigners in Russia. " Peter the Great was the
true creator and the great teacher of Russian industry,"
says M. Ischchanian, the Armenian economist.1

It must be noted, however, that industry on the large
scale was not unknown in Russia before the reign of
Peter the Great. A century and a half earlier it was
already in existence ; the first paper-mill was estab-
lished under Ivan the Terrible, as was also the first
printing-press. In the seventeenth century other works
were established ; the first cloth-weaving establishment
was founded in 1650 by a foreigner ( Johann of
Sweden). Metallurgy was even earlier in the field ; in
1632 the Government granted to Vinius, a Dutchman,
a patent to found and exploit a large foundry, and
two years later another foreigner (Kojet) obtained
permission to erect a glass-works.

This proves that wholesale industry and the participa-
tion of foreigners preceded the advent of Peter the
Great.

Before his time, it is true, the small industry pre-
dominated ; the birth of great undertakings was merely

1 B. Ischchanian, Die Ausldndischen Elcmcntc in der Russischen Volks-
wirtichafl (Berlin, 1913), p. 19.

32 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

a tporadic phenomenon, and it was only after his reign
that it became regular and systematic. Nevertheless,
in order that this transformation should be possible, a
material foundation was essential, which did, in fact, exist.

"In Russia, before Peter the Great, there was no
industrial capitalism, but a commercial capitalism was
already completely developed. The concentration of
commercial capital which we observe in this Russia
was not due to governmental measures, but to the
spontaneous development of trade and the recognition
of the advantages presented by commerce on a large
scale as compared with petty trading*. It was pre-
cisely this commercial capital which furnished the
foundation of the greater industries under Peter the
Great. To convince ourselves of this we need only
consult the lists of contemporary manufacturers ; we
shall see that, contrary to a very prevalent idea, they
were, in a great majority, purely Russian, and belonged
to the corporation or guild of merchants." ■

Such is the verdict of Professor Toughan-Baranovsky,
the leading historian of Russian industry.

" The foreigners and the nobles owned only an in-
significant proportion of the factories existing under
Peter I. . . . The owners of the greater number of
these concerns were Muscovite capitalists of the old
stock — merchants. The fact that they were so shows
that the greater industries developed in a favourable
environment, created by the whole past of the Muscovite
State, more especially in the heart of the great com-
mercial world. This environment was not the work
of Peter ; without it, industry on the larger scale would
have found it impossible, in Russia, to attain any con-
siderable extension." 2

But, as we know, commercial capitalism on the
greater scale was able to wax fat and increase in
Muscovite Russia only thanks to foreign relations. Con-

1 If. Toughan-Baranovsky, The Russian Factory in the Pad and
Present, vol. i. p. 8 (Petersburg, 1898, Russian ed.).
* Ibid., pp. 10, II.

THE MATERIAL BONDS 33

sequently we are justified in saying that the exchanges
with Europe rendered the advent of the great Russian
industries possible by. affording them the necessary
soil.

As for the part played by Peter the Great and his
Government, it translated itself chiefly in measures
which were half-encouraging and half-coercive, but
which were designed to attract commercial capital to
the business of industrial production. .We know what
these measures were : privileges and monopolies for
the founders of industrial undertakings, State contracts
to supply the army and navy, etc. To the period of
Peter the Great, therefore, we must refer the origin
of those close relations between the Government and
the great commercial capitalists which even to-day
appear as one of the most characteristic traits of Russia,
and are of great significance. On account of these
relations the wealthy middle classes of Russia are always
greatly subject to the action of the State, which has
formed the habit of intervening in the economic life
of the nation and of tackling its problems directly.
The principle of lalssez faire, laissez passer has never
been that of the Russian State, which is for ever carry-
ing on various undertakings, exploiting, as a private
individual, railways, distilleries, mines, factories, forests,
etc. I believe we shall nowhere else find a State
so greatly concerned with trade and industry.

To understand how it has come to assume such a
function we must go back to its first great ventures
into the economic sphere, under Peter I, not forgetting
that it then found the soil prepared. For we know
that as early as the seventeenth century the State was
adding to its administrative functions the exercise of
trade, and notably that it carried on an extensive trade
with foreign countries. Thus conditions came into being
which were propitious to the reforms of Peter the
Great and to that economic " Europeanization " of
Russia which he so resolutely undertook.

3

34 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

III

But it must not be supposed that Peter the Great
intended to " denationalize " Russia, or that he was
the enemy of the truly Russian elements of the nation.
On the contrary, his system was fully national in
character, and one of the authors who have studied
it was able to say of him with reason that Peter the
Great was merely an enlightened nationalist.1

Peter I was a representative of the mercantile
doctrine. But the mercantile doctrine is merely an
economic nationalism.2 This theory, as far as it applied
to Russia, was expounded by Baron von Luberas in
a scheme which he proposed to Peter : —

" To set the general economy in a solid and stable
order it is extremely necessary to give this structure
a suitable life or soul. This last consists in the amount
of credit which your Majesty enjoys abroad." As
for this credit, it is necessary to the development of
trade and industry in the interior of the country ; for
" one must take pains to improve the production of
one's own country " ; must no longer remain dependent
on foreign industry, but must obtain an active balance
in favour of Russia, and " create one's own manu-
factures."

Such was the advice of Luberas. 3 And such was the
opinion of Peter himself, who was familiar with the
mercantile doctrine not only through the theories of
Luberas and other " projectors," but also in practice —
in the Netherlands and other European countries

1 See the work already cited of M. Ischchanian, p. 20.

* Mr. H. Higgs, the well-known English economist, says of the
" mercantilists " : " The mercantilists were always extremely anxious
to solve the following problem : By what means may a Government
contribute to the well-being of the nation ? Nationalism, State inter-
vention, and particularism constitute the essentials of their economic
policy."

» Cited from Milukov's The Economy of the Russian Slate during the
First Quarter of the Tenth Century and the Reform of Peter the Great
(Petersburg, 1892, p. 528, Russian ed.).

THE MATERIAL BONDS 35

through which he had travelled. However, he could
not be a " mercantilist " according to the Dutch or
English pattern. In the Low Countries and in England
industry was created far more by private initiative than
by the public authorities. French mercantilism —
" Colbertism " — was already more governmental. In
Russia the r61e of the public authorities had perforce
to be greater because private initiative was feeble,
and very often the Russian bourgeoisie was even hostile
to the introduction of new methods of economic
exploitation and to the "• Europeanization " of the
national methods of production. Thus, for example,
one of the leading Russian publicists and economists of
the time of Peter I, Ivan Pososhkov, advised the Tsar
to M stop all the chinks " through which Russia placed
herself in communication with the .West, and to sup-
press even postal communication. Pososhkov and many
others were partisans of a conservative and retrograde
economic nationalism, while Peter I represented an
enlightened and progressive nationalism. And as the
resisting force of the conservative nationalists was in-
sufficient, the authorities were able to effect changes
in the domain of economics which to us appear almost
" a revolution from above."

IV

(What were the practical results of the " Europeaniza-
tion " of industry under Peter I ?

The figures relating to the Russian industry of the
period are by no means negligible, for on the death
of the Tsar there were in Russia 233 large industrial
establishments belonging to the State and to private
individuals, the mines being excepted. We may even
say that they satisfied immediate requirements. But
if we consider the elements and possibilities of future
evolution, the spectacle is less brilliant.

A superior economic system imposing itself upon a
country whose general level is inferior to it produces
a twofold effect. On the one hand, it stimulates the

36 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

forces of production, whose means it tends to modernize
and improve. But at the same time it exerts a
destructive effect : it disintegrates and dissolves the
forms which preceded it, and which are no longer
adapted to the new requirements which it has evoked.

This is precisely what happened under Peter I . While
with great activity a new equipment was elaborated
and a new technique came into being, the representa-
tives of the old conceptions of life and labour waged
a truly desperate campaign against all " innovations "
and all that was " foreign."

Great material, social, and moral suffering was caused
by this clash between the old economic state and the
European form of exploitation introduced by Peter the
Great. These sufferings have impressed many Russian
historians and investigators to the point of inspiring
a condemnation of the entire work of industrial renova-
tion accomplished by this monarch.

One of the foremost of these writers, M. Korsak,
is of opinion that Peter's whole economic policy was
simply a huge mistake : that far from founding large
establishments in the European manner he should have
applied himself to organizing the small national crafts
and trades and the small local industries which existed
long before his time. " Instead of turning the artisans
into industrial workers, it would have been far better
to have made them independent industrial master-crafts-
men," and " instead of building factories on account of
the State and afterwards placing them in possession
of merchants and nobles, it would have been better
to entrust their exploitation to the communes, villages,
and towns." M. Korsak, whose work on Some Forms
of Industry appeared in 1861, was of opinion that
"the new form of industry (established by Peter I)
was in absolute contradiction to all the modes and
habits of Russian life."

But it is to be noted, in the first place, that the
concentration of small enterprises and the communal
exploitation of which M. Korsak speaks could not have

THE MATERIAL BONDS 37

been realized in the eighteenth century, for even in
our days the "■ commercialization " of industry
encounters many difficulties and advances very slowly.
Peter's reign was a period of wars ; and the Govern-
ment was too much taken up by the necessities of
external conflict to exercise any choice ; it merely
borrowed from Europe what it found there.

The question, then, is not what Peter the Great
should have done, but what he was able to do.

On the other hand, was the new form of production,
as M. Korsak states, absolutely contrary to the modes
and habits of Russian life? In this connection we
must remember that commerce on the grand scale, as
we have seen, was not unknown before the reign of
Peter, so that industry had only to follow the example
of commerce . We may admit, however, that the general
economic conditions and " the new form of industry "
were in disagreement. But they were so precisely
because the one was superior to the others, as being
more progressive.

Fully to grasp the nature of this contradiction we
must consider and solve a special problem which com-
plicated the process of " Europeanizing " Russia —
namely, the problem of labour.

The efforts of Peter the Great to develop Russian
industry were confronted by a scarcity of *•* hands."
The founders of the first factories were not serf -owning
nobles, but merchants and foreigners, who owned no
serfs. The Government, in granting them a patent
for the establishment of an industrial undertaking, left
them at liberty to recruit Russian or foreign workers
" by paying them a proper wage." The principal con-
tingent of these " free " workers consisted of ex-serfs
who had of their own will left their noble masters.
The nobles, greatly vexed by this defection, demanded
that they should be sent back from the factories to
their villages. But Peter I, by a ukase dated 1722,
forbade the surrender of these peasants, turned artisans,
to their lawful masters.

38 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Reading this ukase, one would naturally suppose that
in the conflict between the old national regime, based
on serfdom and forced labour, and the new industrial
exploitation, which enjoyed the co-operation of free
labour, Peter the Great was in favour of the second,
and that he would thus have arrived at the idea of
abolishing serfdom. Nothing of the kind ! In the
preceding year ( 1 7 2 1 ) Peter, by another ukase, had
authorized " merchant folk " owning factories to buy
peasants on condition that they bought them by the
whole village, and that each village was attached not
to the person of the manufacturer, but to the industrial
undertaking itself.

So, in their struggle against innovation, the " old
habits," unhappily, won the day ; and instead of hasten-
ing the disappearance of serfdom, as it did in Europe,
the new industry, as soon as it made its appearance
in Russia, adapted itself to its environment, and took
as its basis the same forced labour of the serfs which
was the basis of agriculture.

More than a century elapsed before a true
" Europeanization " of industrial production became
possible in Russia by means of the liberation of the
serfs .

CHAPTER IV

I. Foreign influences under the successors of Peter the Great — The
conflict between Western tendencies and the Russian system of
government — Catherine II — The ukase of 1763. II. European
colonists in the Russian countryside — Why is the Russian moujik
poor and the immigrant farmer rich ? III. The true method of
" Europeanizing " the economic system of Russia.

The immediate successors of Peter the Great did not
continue his economic policy. We may even say that
they, followed a totally contrary line of conduct. Instead
of developing the forces of the country they occupied
themselves only with their own . . . consumption.
They wasted far more than they created. The general
character of such European influences as they did not
avoid underwent a total change. Peter I summoned
to Russia able specialists in industry, trade, the sciences,
and the military art — engineers, officers, and merchants ;
his successors fell into the hands of adventurers.1 The
Tsars, and above all the Tsarinas (incapable of resist-
ing the charms of foreign beauty), distributed to their
favourites the property of the State, large sums of
money taken from the Treasury, lands, and entire
villages peopled with serfs.

What was even more serious was that without having
borrowed from Peter the Great one single positive
and fruitful idea, his immediate successors repeated
and revived his errors.

1 M. Emile Haumant mentions this fact in his remarkable work on
French Culture in Russia, stating that the wave of French immigration
into Russia became "more turbid" after the reign of Peter I. It was
the same with the immigration from other European countries.

39

40 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

The ukase of 1721, which confirmed the principle
of serfdom, was doubtless an error in that it worsened
the situation of the labouring masses ; but at least it
recognized an equality of rights between the industrial
capitalists and the nobles, and did not reserve the
labour of the serfs exclusively for those who had until
then been their masters. Under Peter's successors the
nobles had their revenge. They applied themselves to
depriving the merchants and manufacturers of the right
of owning serfs, so that they could thenceforth
monopolize industry without risk of competition.

Under the pressure of their demands a law was
passed in 1762 forbidding persons not belonging to
the nobility to purchase serfs and to employ them in
factories and workshops. This law was only the logical
climax of a series of measures whose aim was to re-
establish the supremacy of the nobility in the indus-
trial domain, and was thus entirely opposed to the
tendency then prevailing in Europe, where the bourgeois
system was advancing by rapid strides. This " ennoble-
ment " of Russian industry had disastrous results, as
I have already explained elsewhere.

" Thanks to the law of 17,62 and the small number
of free workers, the nobles were not slow to
monopolize all the principal branches of industry.
. . . But if the serfs were bad industrial workmen,
the nobles themselves were deplorable organizers.
Accustomed to live by gratuitous labour — that of their
serfs — the nobles possessed neither the energy nor the
initiative essential in a good manufacturer. . . .
Having no competition to fear, they had nothing to
stimulate them to improve the technique of their pro-
duction." ■

The advent of Catherine II seemed bound to cause
a revival of the economic policy and a return to the
positive conceptions of Peter the Great. Like him,
Catherine II resorted to the European element as to
a ferment.

' Modern Russia, 2nd cd., p. 81.

THE MATERIAL BONDS 41

In the second year of her reign (on the 22nd of July
1763) she published a ukase inviting foreigners to enter
Russia, promising them (1) entire liberty of religious
conscience and subventions for the institution of their
various cults ; (2) perpetual exemption from obligatory
military service ; (3) exemption from taxation during a
certain period ; (4) communal autonomy in respect of
matters of administration and police, with the right to
elect their own administrators, ,and the creation of a
special superior body having the general direction of
the relations between the immigrants and the State ;
(5) a special jurisdiction for matters as between one
immigrant and another.

These provisions attracted to Russia a multitude of
Europeans, who considerably reinforced the foreign
coefficient in the Russian economy. At the end of
Catherine's reign, for example, out of 163 factories and
workshops then existing in Petersburg 35, or 21*47 per
cent., belonged to foreigners, 7 to Englishmen, 7 to
Frenchmen, 5 to Germans, 3 to Bulgarians, 2 to Italians,
1 to a Swede, and 10 to persons of unknown origin —
probably, for the most part, to Germans. In Moscow,
too, a European colony established itself, consisting
principally of Germans.

II

But the most important result of the ukase of 1763
was the appearance of immigrants in the agricultural
regions .

From 1764 to 1776 a great influx of Rheinlanders
and Westphalians entered Russia, to found villages on
the banks of the Volga (in the Governments of Saratov
and Samara), where they occupied an expanse of terri-
tory 100 versts in length. In 1783 another wave of
Europeans penetrated the south of Russia (in the
Government of Yekaterinoslav), on the banks of the
Dnieper. It consisted of Mennonites (a Protestant
sect), half Dutch and half German in origin, who
established agricultural colonies.

42 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

The immigration of European agriculturists continued
under Alexander I and Nicolas I. In 1803 a vigorous
group of Mennonite families set foot in one of the
Caucasian regions. It was followed by other colonists,
who at first were exclusively German, and then Czech
and Bulgar, who established themselves in South-
western Russia.

A few figures will show how rapidly Southern Russia
was peopled with foreign agriculturists.

In 1775 there were in Russia only 23,000 individual
colonists. In 1877, a century later, there were 86,000
families, and in 1905 there were 158,500. In 1877
they owned 2,894,500 desiatins of land ; in 1905
3 , 1 9 o, o o o desiatins . l

The greater part of the agricultural immigrants is
concentrated in the Governments of Kherson (61,000
families), Bessarabia (27,500), Samara (21,000),
Saratov (19,000), Yekaterinoslav [(17,000), and the
Crimea (11,500).

Here we are speaking only of agriculturists who have
become Russian subjects . There are in addition to these
a certain number of landed proprietors who are foreign
subjects. In 1905 the number of estates belonging to
them was 868, and they possessed 350,000 desiatins of
land. Most of them are large landowners who have
been able to acquire property in Russia by means of
their personal connections.

As for the peasant colonists, we must admit, and all
writers on the subject will confirm the fact, that their
economic situation is far superior td that of the Russian
peasants. For certain economists this phenomenon is
due to the " individualism " prevailing among the immi-
grants, whereas the Russian peasants have remained
attached to the communism of the mir. This theory
must even, to a certain point, have inspired the famous
agrarian reform' of the Minister Stolypin (the ukase of

* I cite these figures from the results of the statistical inquiry into
landed property in Russia in 1905 (published by the Ministry of the
Interior, Petersburg, 1907, pp. xxiv-xxvii).

THE MATERIAL BONDS 43

9/22 November 1906), whose central principle was
the dissolution of the agricultural commune and the
substitution of individual exploitation.

I am not a great admirer of the Russian mir, but I
must, however, say that the well-being of the immi-
grants and the poverty of the sons of the soil are not
imputable to the system of property, but to the difference
of general conditions to which they are severally subject.
If the Russian Government, which granted privileges to
the foreign immigrants, had treated the Russian peasants
in the same manner, if it had not crushed them by
taxation, had exempted them from military service,
and had left them free to administer their own affairs,
instead of keeping them under the terrible yoke
of serfdom, we may be sure that they would have
given equal proof of their capacity for labour and
organization.

On the other hand, we should remark that the land9
of the colonists are far more extensive than those of the
Russian moujiks. According to the official inquiry of
1905, a dvor (court or household) of colonists com-
prises an average of 20*2 desiatins, while a dvor of
Russian moujiks comprised only 6 to 9 desiatins ; and
millions of dvors of Russian moujiks average only 3 to
4 desiatins.

This lack of land is the greatest obstacle to the
development of rural exploitation in Russia. In
1908 the zemstvo of Samara made a comparative
statistical inquiry into the state of agriculture within
its government. It admits that a family of Men-
nonite colonists possesses an average of 33^ desia-
tins, while a Russian peasant family possesses only
7 desiatins. The authors of this inquiry, who are
greatly in favour of individual exploitation, nevertheless
remark : — ' !

" Only a given quantity of land can maintain the life
of a Mennonite family at the level of affluence to which
it is accustomed. With the decrease of territorial
property begin those troubles which result in diminished

44 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

exploitation and, finally, in the loss of the property
itself." "

The same conclusions result from the facts to be
observed in other parts of Russia : for example, in the
Government of Kiev, where there are Czech and German
agricultural colonies. Their prosperity results from the
fact that their properties are much more extensive than
those of the moujiks, and are cultivated under different
legal and social conditions.2

Ill

The special and favourable treatment of foreign
colonists proves that Catherine II and her successors
held the European element in great esteem, but had
little understanding of the process of " Europeanizing "
their State. The transformation which they were seek-
ing could not be obtained by creating oases of European
culture in the desert of general poverty. What was
needed was to raise the native population by offering it
the possibility of living and working as in Europe.
Their false conception diminished the effects expected
from Western immigration. And we are always struck
by the contrast between the European colonies and the
surrounding Russian countryside.

Any progress in general politics, on the contrary, has
made way for a fresh economic impulse, and has added
to the real Europeanization of Russia. For example,
the great events of the period 1860-70— the abolition
of serfdom, the reform of the administration, etc.— gave
it the strongest impulse. It is enough to say that three-
fourths of the industrial undertakings to-day existing
have been born since then.

However, despite all errors of domestic policy, in-
creasingly powerful ties were binding Russia to Europe,

■ Individual Exploitations in the Government of Samara, vol. i. p. 177
(Samara, 1909).

• See M. A. Yarochevitch, Essay on the Individual Exploitations in
the Government of Kiev (extracted from the Inquiry held by the
Zcmstvo of Kiev). Kiev, 191 1.

THE MATERIAL BONDS 45

making her inseparable from the international economic
organism. And all through the nineteenth century we
may observe an increasingly close correlation between
the evolution of Russia and that of the countries with
which she maintained relations.

To limit ourselves to a single example, let us take the
textile industry, whose development was continuous
throughout the nineteenth century, even at times when
depression and even stagnation prevailed in other
departments of production .

In the middle of the eighteenth century the whole
business of weaving cotton cloths was monopolized in
Russia by two Englishmen — Chamberlain and Cosens —
who had a large establishment in Petersburg. Since
then relations between the Russian textile industry and
that of England have been unbroken, surviving the
suppression of the privilege granted to the two English-
men. During the whole of the nineteenth century a
remarkable parallelism was observable between the fluc-
tuations of Russian and English production. All crises
occurring in the latter were followed by crises in the
former ; and any recovery or revival1 was communi-
cated from the English to the Russian industry, notwith-
standing Russian protectionism and the very high import
duties which it placed on woven stuffs.

Each crisis in the textile industry (for example, that
of 1820, 1837, 1840, etc.) lowered the price of thread
and yarns in England, and these were articles imported
into Russia. A comparison of figures proves the exist-
ence in Russia of the same state of affairs at the same
periods. The fall of prices, in its turn, provoked in
England changes of technical methods, the use of im-
proved equipment, and the more extensive use of
machinery, and we find the same process going forward
at the same time in Russia. " Thus," says Professor
Toughan-Baranovsky, in commenting upon these facts,
" the evolution of our textile factory is explained, above
all, by the. general international conditions of industrial
evolution. Russia has been caught in the wheels of the

46 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

capitalistic development of England, and has profited
by the technical successes of the latter." »

During the second half of the nineteenth century the
tendency indicated by the history of the textile industry
became generalized, and affected other important
branches of Russian production. The alternations of
progress and arrest in the capitalistic economy were
almost simultaneous in Russia, in Europe, and in the
rest of the world.

iWe might point to other analogies and correlations
of the same kind between Modern Russia and Europe.
Some economists (notably J. Hobson in his Evolution
of Modern Capitalism) declare that all periods of inten-
sive railway construction in England, on the Continent,
and in the United States were succeeded by moments
of economic depression and stagnation. The same phe-
nomenon appeared in Russia after the attacks of " rail-
way fever " in the seventh and ninth decades of the
nineteenth century, when periods of prosperity and
speculation were terminated by " smashes " ; by the
ruin and disappearance of dozens of industrial
enterprises .

In general it may be said that the industrial and!
capitalistic economy of Russia lives the same life as
that of Europe.

* M. Toughan-Baranovsky, The Russian Factory in the Past and
Present, vol. i. p. 65 (Petersburg, 1898).

CHAPTER V

I. European influence and the national economy of the Russia of
to-day — The increase of imports and exports — The general char-
acter of Russia's foreign trade. II. Human immigration from
Europe into Russia — Its composition. III. The penetration of
European capital into Russia. IV. Its forms and its dimensions —
State loans and private industry — National capital and foreign
capital in Russia. V. The distribution of foreign capital among
the various branches of industry. VI. German capitalism and its
influence on the Russian economy.

I

Having glanced at the main outlines of the history of
the economic relations between Russia and Western
Europe, let us now examine, in a general manner, the
penetration of the European element into the national
economy of Russia.

The total value of the Russian exports and imports
amounted, on the average, during the first quarter of
the nineteenth century to 112,300,000 roubles ; from
1825 to 1849 it was 221,200,000; from 1849 to
1874, 525,000,000 ; and from 1875 to 1900,
1,092,000,000. In other words, the commercial move-
ment of Russia upon the international market increased,
in a hundred years, by 972 per cent. ; that is, it became
nearly ten times what it was. And thus Russia's
isolation with regard to the other Powers became ten
times less, while her ties with the other nations became
ten times more solid and complete.1

At the beginning of the twentieth century the role and
the importance of Russia in the exchanges of the world

1 See my Modern Russia, T. Fisher Unwin, 1914, p. 97.

47

48 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

continued to increase. During the first five years of this
century alone the total of her foreign trade increased
by one-third. In 1905 it reached the sum of
1,702,000,000 roubles ; in 1910 it amounted to
2,533,000,000 roubles ; while in 191 3 it amounted
to 2,690,000,000.'

These figures are those of the international trade of
Russia, coming from all sources and going to all desti-
nations. But most of it passes by way of her European
frontiers. For the five years between 1907 and 191 1
inclusive, for example, the goods crossing these fron-
tiers represented an annual average of 2,083,700,000
roubles, while the Asiatic frontiers saw the entrance or
exit of only 202,700,000 roubles' worth of trade, or
less than one-tenth of the former sum.

There is no exaggeration in declaring that if, as
regards political forms, Russia is still far from being
truly Europeanized, at least her economic ties and
aspirations bind her far more closely to Europe than
to Asia.

What is the merchandise which Russia obtains from
Europe?

Alimentary products form the smallest part of the
Russian imports of European origin, which is natural
in the case of an agricultural country. In 1902 their
value amounted to 82,300,000 roubles; in .1912 it
was 140,200,000 ; so in ten years the increase was
one of 70 per cent. The imports of " manu-
factured articles " — industrial products — were valued at
150,300,000 roubles in 1902 and 375,700,000 in
191 2 ; this was an increase of 150 per cent. But
the greater portion of the imports consist of " semi-
manufactured articles " and the raw materials of indus-
tries. Of these 295,000,000 roubles' worth were im-
ported in 1902, and in 191 2 this figure had risen to
518,000,000; an increase of 75 per cent, for the
decade .

■ See the Report of the Minister of Finances on the Budget Pro-
posals of 1914, Part II, p. 2Q (Petersburg, 1913).

THE MATERIAL BONDS 49

These figures, taken from the official Report of the
Minister of Finances on the Budget of 191 4, enable me
to say that unreservedly to attribute all the advantages
of the commercial relations between Russia and Europe
to Europe, and all the disadvantages to Russia, would
be to fall into hyperbole.

The better to show that the introduction of foreign
industrial goods to the Russian market is of secondary
importance, I will cite two examples : —

In 19 1 2 there were imported into Russia 2,150,000
poods of wool, while the home production of wool
was 13,500,000 poods ; that is, the wool of foreign
origin formed only 14 per cent, of the total Russian
consumption (if we regard it as equal to the sum
of the home production plus the amount imported).
In the same year, 191 2, 306,000,000 poods of coal
were imported into Russia, while the country produced
1,887,000,000 poods, or 87 per cent, of the total con-
sumption.

The sole class of products whose importation really
plays an enormous part in Russia, and in respect of
which the country remains dependent upon the outer
world, is machinery, of which in 191 2 there was im-
ported 146,000,000 roubles' worth, while in 1902 this
figure was only 51,000,000. But this rapid increase
of the demand is in itself a fresh proof of the develop-
ment of national industry, and the promptitude with
which its technical equipment is being improved.

II

The immediate influence of the Europe of to-day is
not confined to the introduction of merchandise ; it
manifests itself under two additional forms ; the export,
into Russia, of men and of capital.

To realize the character and the extent of human
immigration we must repair to the results of the census
of the population of the Russian Empire — the only one,
alas ! — which was taken in 1897. There we find that

4

50 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Russia contained 605,500 foreign subjects, which makes
$ per cent, of the total population.

Some writers believe the proportion of foreign subjects
in Russia to be even less, and give the comparative
figures of immigration relating to other European
countries. In Switzerland the number of foreigners
per 1,000 inhabitants is 77 ; in France, 30 ; in
Belgium, 24 ; in Holland, 10; in Germany, 9 ; in
England, 8 ; in Austria-Hungary, 5 ; in Scotland, 4 j
in the Scandinavian countries, 3 ; in Ireland, 3 ; in
Italy, 2 ; and in Russia, 1 .

Even in those parts of Russia which most attract
him, the foreigner is not very numerous ; in the Cau-
casus he forms 1*69 per cent, of the total population ;
in Poland, 115 per cent. ; in Siberia, ro8 per cent. ;
in Central Russia, 0*2 7 per cent., etc.

According to race, the foreign subjects in Russia
were distributed thus : —

Germans, 158,000; Austro-Hungarians, 121,500;
Turks, 121,000 ; Persians, 74,000 ; Chinese, 47,500 ;
Koreans, 13,000; Greeks, 12,500; French, 9,500;
Bokharans, 8,000 ; English, 7,500 ; Swiss, 6,000 ;
Italians, 5,000 ; Roumanians, 4,000 ; and others,
18,000.

There is a great difference between the immigrants
of Asiatic and those of European origin, as regards
their economic functions. M. Ischchanian defines it as
follows : —

•' The foreigners entering Russia from the West form,
in the urban professions and especially in industry,
trade, and transport— the camp of the contractors,
the directing and administrative staff of the upper
strata of the technical and commercial hierarchy, the
foremen, and, to a less extent, the skilled artisans (this
almost exclusively in Russian Poland). The foreigners
of Asiatic origin, on the other hand, go to form, as a
rule, the middle and inferior strata in such callings as
that of the small trader, the commercial traveller, the
manual worker, and above all the great mass of those

THE MATERIAL BONDS 51

who are known by the specific term of tshernorabotchii
(that is to say labourers, unskilled workmen)." l

fWe may say, then, that Russia lies midway between
Europe and Asia, economically as well as geographi-
cally. Of the Asiatics she already asks no more than
simple manual labour ; for Europeans, Russia is a field
for the employment of their capital and their intellectual
faculties.

Of the 605,000 foreigners residing in Russia in 1897,
244,000 were women. But, as women, economically
speaking, are for the most part a passive element,
enjoying no independence, we need hardly consider them
in our argument, but only the men, who number
361,500.

Forty-one per cent, of the foreigners residing in
Russia in 1897 were living in towns ; 59 per cent, in
the country. Now, of the total population of the Empire
the inhabitants of the towns, in 1897, formed only 25
per cent. It is obvious that in Russia the foreigner
furnishes a far larger proportion of urban inhabitants
than the native population. But an even more interest-
ing fact is that 30 per cent, of all the immigrants are
gathered together in the four great cities : Petrograd,
Moscow, Odessa, and Warsaw.

However, all the foreign nationalities represented in
the Empire have not an equal predilection for urban
life : the Germans, the Czechs, and the Bulgars prefer
to settle outside the towns. Of the Austro-Hungarian
subjects 77 per cent, live in the country, as do 58 per
cent, of the Germans and 57 per cent, of the Bulgars.
This fact is due to the numerous German, Czech, and
Bulgarian colonies in the south of Russia and on the
banks of the Volga. More than three-fourths of the
French in Russia, on the other hand (82 per cent.), are
town-dwellers, and 80 per cent, of the English, 60 per
cent, of the Belgians, and 78 per cent, of the Italians.

As for their professions, the French and English

1 This word is made up of two words : isherny = black, and rabola
= labour.

52 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

are mostly engaged in trade and industry ; of ioo
" active " Frenchmen, 44 are engaged in industry ; 20
in trade and transport ; 28 are servants, while 5 are
farmers and 3 are engaged in other callings. The
English furnish 48 technical or industrial experts per
100 ; 28 are engaged in trade, 28 are servants, etc.,
while only 1 per cent, are farmers. Of the German
subjects the farmers form a much greater proportion —
22 per cent, ; while 32 per cent, are engaged in industry
and 11 per cent, in trade.

The proportion of those engaged in trade and industry
is relatively much larger among the foreigners than
among the native inhabitants, the same census giving
12 per cent, as the proportion of the latter engaged in
industry, while 5^ per cent, are engaged in trade and
70 per cent, in agriculture.

Ill

But it is by the penetration of capital that Europe
exerts the most powerful influence in Russia, for it is
through the foreigner's money and his novel forms of
capitalistic exploitation that the old state of things is
undergoing the most profound upheaval.

European capital enters Russia in three distinct ways :
through the creation in Russia of industrial under-
takings by Europeans, whether by private persons or
companies ; through the participation of European
capital in undertakings organized by the Russians,
whether singly or in association ; and through loans
raised by Russian municipalities, or the State, in
European markets ; the municipal loans being devoted,
as a rule, to various public works in the cities (tram-
ways, waterworks, etc.) ; of the latter (that is, the
State loans), only a portion profits private industry,
through the medium of official contracts, payment of
which is assured by these loans ; the greater portion
goes to defray the costs of administration.

It is not easy to determine the total sum of the
European capital engaged in industry and the Russian

THE MATERIAL BONDS 53

loans. M. Ischchanian claims that at the beginning
of the twentieth century it was 7,145,600,000 roubles,
of which 4,400,000,000 was French, 1,920,000,000
German, 372,000,000 English, and 253,000,000
Belgian, while 200,000,000 came from other European
countries. But M. Ischchanian's calculations are very,
inexact ; in reality the European interests in Russia
are considerably greater.

Thus, according to the data given in 191 2 by the
French review, Le Correspondant, France alone had
17, milliards of francs invested in Russia, or
£680,000,000.1 M. A. Neymarck asserts that Eng-
land, by 1907, had £180,000,000 invested in Russia,
£80,000,000 of this being in State loans. Of the
680,000,000 sterling owed to France, £424,400,000
has been absorbed by external State loans, and
£53,600,000 by internal loans; £16,000,000 by. the
loans issued by the various governments and muni-
cipalities, and £190,000,000 by industrial under-
takings.2

In this connection a Russian economist makes the
very justifiable remark that " the economic dependence
of Russia in respect of foreign countries is principally
manifested by the indebtedness of the State," and that
" in comparison, the sums loaned to Russian trade and
industry appear insignificant." 3

.While readily admitting the justice of the comparison,
we must, however, admk that the absolute r61e of Euro-
pean capital in Russian industry is very considerable.
And what is even more important is that of late it has
been rapidly increasing. Before 1890 there were only
16 shareholders' companies operating in Russia with
funds of foreign origin. Between 1891 and 1900 no

1 In 1914, a few months before the war, Russia had arranged for
a new State loan in Paris, of the sum of ;£ 100,000,000, the first
instalment of which ( £20,000,000) was issued the same year.

* Le Correspondant, December 25, 1913, p. 1050.

3 A. Finn-Yenotaevsky, Sovremennoye Khozidistvo Rossii (The Modern
Economy of Russia), Petersburg, 191 1, p. 481.

54 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

less than 215 were promoted ; between 1900 and 19 10,
160 more; and 82 between 1911 and 1 9 1 3. In this
last period 774 companies were founded with Russian
capital. Thus one-fifth of the new undertakings origi-
nating in a term of three years were the work o.f
foreigners. In reality the latter have contributed even
more considerably to the development of Russian
industry ; for the average share-capital of the foreign
companies was 1,736,000 roubles per company, while
the average share-capital per Russian company was
1,220,000 roubles.

In order correctly to appreciate the rdle of foreign
capital in Russian industry we must compare it not
with the external indebtedness of the State, but rather
with the national revenue and the national capital.

Here is an example : —

In 19 10 the annual revenue of all the industrial
and commercial undertakings in Russia (counting only
those whose income was over 1,000 roubles) was
856,000,000 roubles. The total of the foreign capital
invested in authorized shareholders' companies in the
year 191 1 was 80,000,000 roubles. Supposing that
the Russian capitalists were in a position to devote
even 50 per cent, of their revenue to the creation of fresh
undertakings, we see that they, could invest some
400,000,000 roubles, that is, only, five times the foreign
capital invested in the same year.

IV

By the figures already cited the reader will have
seen that Europe exerts, on the Russia of to-day, a
considerable economic influence ; but it is not true that
Russia is completely dependent upon Europe. The
Russian Empire is no longer economically isolated,
though it has not lost its autonomy.

However, we must not overlook certain specific traits
of European participation in Russian affairs.

In the first place, we must note that relatively, speak-
ing the foreign industrial undertakings in Russia are

THE MATERIAL BONDS 55

more vigorous than the Russian. For example, the
capital of the shareholders' companies of European
origin established in Russia between 1 9 1 1 and 1 9 1 3
averaged 1,736,000 roubles per company, while the
average capital of the Russian companies founded during
the same period was only 1,222,000 roubles. Compe-
tition, therefore, is a difficult matter for the Russian
capitalist.

The situation as regards national capital is compli-
cated by the distribution of foreign capital through-
out the various branches of industry. The most im-
portant branches — for instance, metallurgy, coal-mining,
weaving, etc. — are largely under the control of European
capital.

Here are some significant facts and figures : —

In the basin of Southern Russia, at the beginning
of the twentieth century, 75 per cent, of the coal pro-
duced came from 1 5 large concerns, of which two-
thirds, furnishing 62 per cent, of the annual yield,
belonged to Europeans. In the Dombrova mines, in
Poland, out of 1 3 large undertakings 6 are the property
of foreigners, yielding 86 per cent, of the total pro-
duction.

As for iron, we find the same state of affairs. For
example, in the basin of the Donetz, at the beginning
of the twentieth century, out of 23 large steelworks,
only 2 were the property of Russians ; 1 5 are the
property of foreigners, or " mixed " companies in which
the foreign element predominates.

At Baku, once more, the foreign domination is indis-
putable. In 1909 Baku exported 371,932,500 poods
of petroleum and by-products, the yield of 45 enter-
prises. But more than 45 per cent, of this quantity,
or 167,982,000 poods, represented the contribution of
5 great companies of European ownership.

As for the textile industry, one of the first fields to
be invaded by foreign capital, it already boasts of a
few centres, particularly in the region of Moscow, in
which it has become fairly Russianized', and most of

56 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

the names of foreign origin borne by the heads of
industrial houses in this part of Russia are the names
of Russian subjects. But in other parts the weaving
of fabrics is almost entirely controlled by foreign
capital. Such is notably the case at Lodz, in Poland,
and in the surrounding district.

These facts enable us to state without exaggeration
that European capital is still a very great power in
the principal departments of Russian production.

.Which nations provide the capital that feeds Russian
industry?

In the metallurgical industry, British, Belgian, and
French capital predominates. The real creator of
metallic exploitation in the Donetz region was an Eng-
lishman, the famous John Hughes, who was also the
pioneer of coal-mining in the European manner in the
same region. The memory of this energetic pioneer
is perpetuated in the name of one of the leading in-
dustrial centres of Southern Russia, Youzovka (Hughes
being pronounced as Youz in Russian, hence Youzovka,
" the town of Youz ").

After him some French capitalists established them-
selves in the Donetz region, at Krivoi Rog (in 1880).
Ten years later a well - known Belgian company,
Cockerill & Co., established a large works near the
town of Yekaterinoslav. A host of industrial promoters
of various nationalities followed them, among whom
were even Americans, but the principal contributions
of foreign capital to the industries of Southern Russia
were due to English, French, and Belgian investors.

The petroleum industry in the Caucasus is the work
of Swedish and English capital. A Swede, Robert
Nobel, arriving in Baku in 1877, established, five years
later, a company for the production of petroleum, which,
as far as Russia was concerned, effected a veritable
revolution in the industry and gave new life to a
whole region. In 1886 the house of Rothschild (of
Paris) joined Nobel on the Apcheron peninsula, there
to conduct, with him, the " petroliferous apostolate."

THE MATERIAL BONDS 57

It treated with the English house of Lane and
McAndrew for the exportation of the product on com-
mission. From that moment there was an influx of
English capital for the exploitation of Russian petroleum.
The English were able not only to buy most of the
enterprises already existing in Baku and the district,
but have also monopolized nearly all those which have
since been undertaken.

German capital has been attracted by the mines
and foundries of Poland (at Sosnowice and Dombrova),
where the first large works were established, between
1856 and 1863, by Count Renard and Major von
Kramsta, who came from Prussia. But it has since
then been attracted more especially by the textile
industry, which, although it was introduced by British,
Dutch, and French capitalists, none the less received
a powerful impulse at the hands of a German, Ludwig
Knoop, who came to Moscow in 1 8 3 9 as the repre-
sentative of an English house, and there established,
first with the assistance of British capitalists, but after-
wards independently, 122 weaving-sheds in the regions
of Petersburg and Moscow. A popular proverb
enshrines his memory : Gdie tserkov, tarn pop, gdie
fabrika, tarn Knoop — '•* Where there is a church, there
is a pope ; where there is a factory, there is a Knoop,"
and the addition is sometimes made : " Gdie" izba,
tam klop — " Where there is an inn there are bugs."

But to-day, as I have already stated, the role of
German capital in the textile industry of Central Russia
has decreased. In Poland, on the other hand, it is
enormous ; and the city of Lodz is not Polish, but
half German.

V

We shall now touch upon a particularly serious
question : the weight and the tendency which each
of the foreign elements exerts upon the economic system
of Russia.

In the industrial undertakings of the country the

58 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

French and English are first. But this is not the case
with the general economic relations of Russia with
Europe — that is, when we come to deal not merely
with the investment of European capital in Russian
industries, but also with the commercial exchanges
between Russia and the various countries of Europe,
and the loans concluded by the Russian State in the
various European money markets. As to loans, France
occupies an exceptional position. She has lent
the Russian Empire 1 0*617, milliards of francs
(£424,000,000) in external loans and 1*344 milliards
(£53,760,000) in domestic loans, besides the
310,000,000 (£12,400,000) lent to the zemstvos and
municipalities, and without counting the so-called
v railway loan " of 500,000,000 (£20,000,000) con-
cluded before the present war and the military loans
issued in the course of the war.

But the commercial exchanges between France and
Russia leave much to be desired, and in this respect
Germany is ahead of France.

*•' Towards the middle of the nineteenth century the
commercial transactions, exportation and importation,
between France and Russia on the one hand and Russia
and Germany on the other, were of almost equal dimen-
sions ; the average at this period (between 1841 and
1850) was 74,000,000 francs (nearly £3,000,000) for
France and 85,000,000 (£3,400,000) for Germany,
the inequality being relatively unimportant. The pro-
gressive development, in the latter half of the nine-
teenth century, of the trade exchanges between Russia
and the rest of Europe had as its basis the Russian
customs tariff, which was uniform for goods of what-
ever origin, yet to-day > Germany has reached, in respect
of her exports to Russia, an annual average of
500,600,000 francs, or £20,024,000, her imports from
Russia being valued at 426,000,000, or £16,800,000,
while the French exports to Russia stand at 66,660,000
francs, or £2,666,000, and the imports at 168,000,000
francs or £6,7,20,000.

* In the last years of the nineteenth century.

THE MATERIAL BONDS 59

" Thus in the last fifty years the German trade with
Russia has grown to eleven and a half times what it was,
while the French trade is only three times what it was." »

Such was the situation at the end of the last century.
At the beginning of the twentieth century the trade
relations between France and Russia are shown by
the following figures : —

Exports from Russia Exports from Franco

Year*. to France (in to Russia (in

millions of francs). millions of francs).

i^1^ i57'5 71"8

1908 171-8 88-3

i9°9 2370 130-3

1910 2489 1580

These figures, taken from the statistics published
by the Russian Customs Administration, are published
by M. A. Giraud, Secretary to the Russian Chamber
of Commerce in Paris.2 To permit of a comparison,
M. Giraud also gives some statistics of German trade
in Russia. From these we see that " the trade relations
between France and Russia, compared to those of
Germany, are deplorable." This will be seen by the
following table, which gives the proportion of French
and German exports to Russia as compared with the
total sum of Russian imports : —

Years.

German exports to

Russia (per cent, of total

Russian Imports).

French exports to

Russia (per cent, of ti

Russian imports),

I90I-5 ...

35-8

4*3

I906-IO ...

39'5

45

I9II

42-0

49

1912

5°'°

5'3

1913

527

46

The absolute figures are no more consoling to French
trade. "While in five years (1908-12) the German
imports have risen from 331 to 519 million roubles,
the French imports have increased only from 35 to
55 millions. The customs tariff is still the same for

1 M. Halperine-Kaminsky, France et Russie: Alliance iconomique,
Paris, E. Flammarion, pp. 4-9.
* A. Giraud, Le Commerce exterieur de la Russie, Paris, 1915, p. 10.

60 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

all countries ; and the question of distance cannot
be invoked as a reason for this inferiority, since Austria-
Hungary, which has a common frontier with Russia,
comes far below France, while, on the other hand,
the United States, which are ten times as distant, show
very much larger figures ; in 1 9 1 2, for example,
85*7 million roubles, as against 552 for France." ■

The commercial superiority of Germany is crushing,
not only with regard to France, but also as compared
with the other countries of Europe. The following
figures prove this for the years 1908 and 191 3 : —

Russian Exports to Various Countries, 1908
(England excepted) a

1908. 1913.

(in millions of roubles) 452*6

I77-4

ioo*8

652

64-6

73*6

357

34'4

216

1 1-4

8-6

89

Russian Imports from Various Countries
(England excepted)

I908. 101.1-

(in millions of roubles) 6427
560

34*6
215
167
1 6*9
161
98
86
128

Germany ... •

.. 278-9

Holland

- 93'5

France2

... 64-6

Austria- Hungary

.. 49-0

Belgium

- 34"4

Italy

... 299

Denmark

•• 315

Turkey

... 21-5

Roumania

... 128

Sweden

47

Norway

... 5-8

Spain

50

Germany

.. 331-8

France"

- 357

Austria- Hungary

26-4

Holland

.. n-5

Italy

129

Turkey

7-i

Sweden

IO'I

Norway

.. 87

Belgium

8-i

Denmark

... 87

1 A. Giraud, op. cit. p. 17.

* The figures relating to France do not entirely coincide with the per-
centage already cited. This is due to the fact that they arc drawn from
different sources — the reports of the French and of the Russian Customs.

THE MATERIAL BONDS 61

The United States, in 1908, exported 75-4 million
roubles' worth of goods to Russia and imported
goods to the value of 2*8 million roubles. In 191 3
the exports were 74*1 millions and the imports
14*1 millions.

As for England, her place on the Russian market
is far larger than that of the other European countries,
excepting Germany.

England's imports from Russia in 1908 were 220*1
million roubles and in 191 3, 2 2 6' 8 millions ; her
exports to Russia in 1908 were 119*9 millions and in
191 3, 170*3 millions. A comparison of these figures
with those of Russo-German trade shows that in this
period of five years (1908-13) the German exports to
Russia increased by 311,000,000 roubles, while the
British exports increased by only 50,000,000, making
the relative increase respectively 193 per cent, and
41 per cent.

It appears, therefore, undeniably that, as far as
Russia at least is concerned, the German lamentations
as to British competition are without foundation. Far
from being prevented by England from making colossal
conquests on the Russian markets, it is the Germans
who little by little are ousting all their competitors,
and are doing their best to monopolize the market.

VI

What are the causes of the commercial supremacy
of Germany in Russia?

In the first place, geographical proximity, which
favours penetration. We have already seen that for
9,421 French and 7,481 English subjects the census
of 1897 numbered 158,103 German subjects who had
immigrated into Russia. But we must not forget that
besides these Germans who are still German subjects
there are the inhabitants of the Baltic provinces, the
farmers of the Volga basin and Southern Russia, and
so forth. According to the census of 1897, the
inhabitants of Russia whose mother-tongue was German

if

62 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

made a total of 1,790,500 persons, who to-day must
have increased to at least 2,000,000.

Contiguity facilitates the economic Germanization of
Russian Poland. It also facilitates commercial ex-
changes. At the beginning of the nineteenth century
the foreign trade of Russia was carried mostly by sea :
from 1802 to 1804 88 per cent, of the exports and
78 per cent, of the imports went by sea. A century
later, on the other hand, a considerable part of this
trade — a third of the exports and half the imports —
was already crossing the terrestrial frontiers, and the
greater portion of it the German frontier. Germany
also possesses a very large part of the maritime trade
of Russia, thanks to the proximity of the German
and Russian ports on the Baltic Sea.

The Russian customs tariffs are the same, or almost
the same, for all countries, and they are extremely
high (on an average they amount almost to a third
part of the value of the merchandise). Nevertheless,
German industry has invaded the Russian market and
has easily beaten all competitors, without excepting
the English, as is shown by the following figures,
published by the Russian Professor Goldstein, one of
the best authorities on this subject.1

Year.

Russian imports from

Germany (per cent, of

total imports).

Russian imports from

England (per cent, of

total imports).

I 898-1902

...

34"6

186

I902-7

...

37'2

M-8

I908-12

...

416

13*4

1912 ...

...

45*4

I2'2

I913 ...

...

475

12-5

J an .-June

1914

49'6

13*3

The geographical conditions, and even the advantages
of the Russo-German commercial treaty in 1904 and
the complaisance of the Germanophile and reactionary
bureaucracy, are not sufficient to explain the triumph
of the Germans in our country.

1 See his article on The German Yoke in the Rousskoie" Slcvo for the
27th January, 1915, Moscow.

THE MATERIAL BONDS 63

The real cause of this is to be found in the special
system adopted by the German industrial syndicates :
the system of "export bounties," which permits them
not only to face the import duties, but even to sell
their products more cheaply abroad than at home.

Here are some of the results thus obtained : —

In 1909 the Rheinland-Westphalia Coal Mines
Syndicate sold in France a large quantity of coal at
15 francs 50 per ton. Import duties and expenses of
transport being deducted, this coal was sold at
5 marks 21, while on the German market it was
selling, at the same moment, for 10 marks 50, or
double the price. At the end of 1900 a German
syndicate of wire-drawers (the wire in question being
employed in making nails) decided to fix the price
of their product at 185 marks per ton for Germany
and 115 marks for the foreign market. The German
alcohol distillers' syndicate, or Spiritusring, sold its
product (in 1904 and later) at 22 marks the hecto-
litre in Germany and 1 1 marks in London.1

The Germans make use of this system in exporting
their goods to Russia, where it has won an even easier
victory than in countries which are, economically speak-
ing, ahead of Russia, such as France and England.

With the help of export bounties and various other
measures, Germany has thus made a rapid conquest
of the Russian market, from which she has ousted all
competitors.

In 1902 the Russian Ministry of Finances published
an official note, in which it characterized the work of the
German industrial syndicates in the following terms : —

" The policy of exporting merchandise at prices lower
than those of the home market is extremely painful
and disastrous to those countries which have to suffer
its employment, as it ruins the native industry. . . .
There is to-day only one means of struggling against

1 These figures are taken from a recent Russian work by M. Gold-
stein : The War of the German Syndicates, Russian Exports, and the
Economic Isolation 0/ Germany (Moscow, 1916).

64 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

the evil of cheap goods exported by these syndicates :
it is, to defend native industry by increasing the customs
duties. But this means, to which the Russian Govern-
ment has been forced to resort, has its disadvantages
and its dangers as regards native industry, as it implies
frequent modifications of the customs tariffs and an
exaggerated system of protection. . . . Besides, this
increase of the tariff is unjust ; provoked by the actions
of the syndicates of one or of several countries, it
penalizes all the foreign States, which to-day are all
bound together by economic treaties." »

Thus the stratagems of the German exporters' syndi-
cates damage not Russian industry alone, but that of
other countries. Moreover, the German population itself
is forced to submit to an artificial increase of prices
in order to provide the syndicates with the means of
carrying on their system of forced exports at low prices.

Yet another consideration presents itself. As I have
explained in my Russia and the Great War,2 the general
character of the economic relations between the two
countries reveals an obvious tendency on the part of
Germany to make Russia her colony. I will not repeat
what I said in the aforesaid work ; I merely wish
to draw the reader's attention to a peculiarity which
is by no means understood. A great difference is to
be remarked in the relations between Germany and
Russia : Russia imports from Germany principally manu-
facture d goods and exports raw materials. This is to
say that German industry buys its raw materials at a low
price from Russia and sells them' after manufacturing
them. This is precisely the function of a metropolis.

Such a conception of exchange is contrary to any
real economic M Europeanization " of Russia, for this
process cannot be conceived without the free co-opera-
tion of all the European factors in the interior of the
country, followed by the free development of the forces
of indigenous capitalism, which would gradually acquire
European forms.

• See the Financial Messenger (Petersburg, 1902, No. 25).

• Russia and the Great War, trans. B. Miall, T. Fisher Unwin, 1915.

PART THE SECOND

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE

CHAPTER I

I. Is the Russian people warlike ? II. A little philology and arithmetic

I

All those who are familiar with the masses of the
Russian people are unanimous in declaring that they are
devoid of warlike aspirations and fundamentally pacific.

The popular poetry and religion of Russia, for
example, are remarkable for the profound love of peace
which has penetrated them from birth, and lias sur-
vived into our own times. This love of peace is
revealed by even the most ancient manifestations of
the popular genius.

" After the end of paganism, as before it, warlike
subjects play not the smallest sensible part in the
religious thought of the mass of the Russian people.
The Russian Olympus is distinguished by the profoundly
peaceable, and, if we may say so, the civilian character
of its divinities. This is particularly striking if we
compare it with the Olympus of the ancient Greeks,
or with the world of the ancient Germanic or Scandi-
navian divinities. Instead of Pallas- Athene, protected
by her cuirass, pagan Russia had her Moist Earth-
Mother, and Christian Russia her Saint Sophia, the
Most Wise, whose only weapon is her gentle wisdom.
Instead of Jupiters and Neptunes waging war among
themselves and upon humanity, we find, in ancient
Russia, Voloss, the protector of flocks and herds, and
Peroun, of whose bellicose tendencies no record has
survived ; while the forests of ancient Greece were
the dwelling-place of Diana Huntress, with her bow

OT

68 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

and arrows, the forests of pagan and Christian Russia
are peopled with Roussalkas, into which young girls
are transformed ' who do not die at their death,' and
who dance their rounds in the soft moonlight.

" Although, in these pagan beliefs of the Russian
Slav, or in the tales and legends of his modern
descendant, we sometimes witness the appearance of
some sanguinary being, who slays men and is thirsty
for their blood, this is neither a god nor a goddess,
but an ' impure force.'

" When the pagan divinities of the Russian Slavs,
being Christianized, assumed a new vesture and a new
exterior, becoming the God and the Saints of Christ-
ianity, they did not on that account lose their pacific
character. For example, let us take St. George, the
type of the warrior-saint. Of the steel-clad warrior,
lance in hand, mounted on his great charger, the Russian
peasant has made a peaceable and useful auxiliary
of his laborious life. He has given St. George the
care of the village pasture.

"In the spring of each year, on the 23rd of April
(Russian style), which is St. George's Day, the peasants
of all Russia leave in the fields their herds of co\vs>
their horses, and their sheep, exhausted by the
long winter sojourn in the byre. Early in the morning
of this day the peasants and their womenfolk make
the round of the sown fields, begging St. George ' to
rise early in the morning, to open the soil and to
sprinkle the dew on the rebellious barley with its fine
ears and beautiful grains.' Then they let out their
flocks and herds, which they drive with branches of
willow blessed in the church, and pray to ' the kindly
George to guard their herds in the fields and the woods
from the greedy, wolf, the cruel bear, and every evil
beast.'

" A village shepherd, a farmer instead of a knight !
Such is the metamorphosis undergone by the tradi-
tional figure of St. George when the saint found his
way into the midst of the Russian peasantry !

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 69

" Pacific sentiments and a natural aversion from war
are to be found also in the Russian proverbs, which
realize plainly that ' war loves blood,' but that ' blood
is not water,' and, consequently, that ' a bad peace is
better than a good war.' " ■

When we come to look into the heroic Russian epopee
— the epic of the bylinas — we shall expect to find a
warlike element. But, in reality, even in these essen-
tially warlike songs pacifism is predominant, and the
warriors give way before the labourers, the peaceful
workers. One of the bylinas represents an encounter
between Volga Vseslavitch, a proud and noble knight,
and Mikoula Selianinovitch, a peasant and a tiller of
the soil, who triumphs over Volga even without a fight.

"Mikoula is the rustic Hercules. . .. . The Russian
epic is perhaps the only one (save the Finnish epic, the
Kalevala) in which a great heroic part is played by a
tiller of the soil " — so M. Alfred Rambaud remarks in
his book, La Russie E pique. "It is by this above all
that we realize that the bylinas were made by the people
and for the people. The French chansons des gestes,
for example, are of a more aristocratic character ; our
trouveres thought before all else of their auditors,
barons and noble warriors ; never would they have
dreamed of humiliating them before a base-born
hero." 2

The same comparison may be made between the
Russian epic and the German epic.

" In the Germanic epopee Thor, the patron of the
toilers, is constantly overridden by Odin, the warrior ;
it is just the contrary in the Slav epic."

The best loved and the most popular hero of the
Russian bylinas is Ilya Mourometz, the peasant's son
— this is the epithet which invariably, accompanies Ilya's

' Quoted from my article La Guerre et les soldats dans la poisie popu-
laire Russe, in La Revue de Paris, 1916.

3 Alfred Rambaud, La Russie Epique (p. 37). This work was pub-
lished forty years ago (in 1876), but it has remained to this day one of
the best works on the history of the poetry of ancient Russia.

70 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

name in all the bylinas, as the epithet Selianinovitch—
meaning " the villager " or " the son of the villager " —
accompanies the name of Mikoula.

Ilya, the peasant's son, who performs a great number
of varied exploits, commences by a rustic exploit— by
tilling the soil. Having received from his father, the
aged peasant, the commandment " to plot nothing
against the Tartar, not to kill the Christian on the bare
plain," and to busy himself " with good and not with
evil works," Ilya strives religiously to observe this
commandment. He uses his strength only to struggle
against evil and injustice, to defend his country against
enemies from without. He is a peasant warrior, who
seeks neither aggression nor conquest, and who accepts
battle only as a means of legitimate defence.

War, in the Russian bylinas, is as a rule accepted
only as a means of defence ; indeed, the bylinas repre-
sent it only as such. No doubt the poetry of the popu-
lace considered it unworthy to sing of offensive war.
The hero of the Russian bylinas is above all the
defender of his native soil, but by no means the con-
queror of foreign territory ; he is the guardian of his
people's independence, but by no means the oppressor
of other peoples.

II
If my readers will permit me a brief incursion into
the domain of philology, I would call their attention to
a very curious fact : the terms which serve to denote
the heroes of the Russian bylinas are not of Russian
origin. Bogatyr and vitiaz, which are equivalent to
the words " valiant knight," or preux chevalier, are
derived, the one from the Turco-Mongolian words batyr
or bat our, bagadour or baghatoar, and the other from
the Scandinavian word viking. Certainly, to denote
the heroes of whom they sing the bylinas also employ
the two words polenitsa and khorobre or khrabrc ;
but these two words have not a specially warlike sig-
nificance. The first signifies "giant," "man of great

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 71

size " ; the second (which we find again in the modern
adjective khrabryi) means "courageous or virile man."
As for bogatyr and vitiaz, they have a more definitely
bellicose and aggressive meaning. Now, both are of
foreign origin ; the one comes from the Turco-Mongols,
against whom the Slavs of Russia fought for ages ; the
second from the Scandinavians, or Variags, who, accord-
ing to the legend, as we know, were the first political
and military organizers to enter Russia.

We cannot but regard as characteristic the fact that
the first words denoting the warrior by vocation in the
ancient Russian epic are non-Russian words, taken from
foreign tongues, so that the ancient Russian vocabulary
evidently has no special term to denote the professional
soldier. It is obvious, then, that this calling did not
play any important part in the life of the ancient Russian
Slavs.

Lastly, I would remark that the foreign elements still
have a very perceptible and even a preponderant in-
fluence on the ulterior development of the military
forces in Russia. We can follow and estimate this
influence by studying the composition and the history,
of the Russian vocabulary in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, which were those during which
the Russian regular army was being organized, and
which enriched the language with a host of terms which
were nearly all borrowed from foreign vocabularies.
The names of nearly all ranks or grades, from the
simple soldat to the gueneralanchef and the gueneral-
issimus are taken from the French or German ; as are
unteroffitzer and feldfebel, kaptendrmus and bombardir,
grenader and dragoun, goussar and feierwerker. The
pupils of the secondary military colleges are known as
kadety (cadets) ; those of the officers' schools are
junkerd. The officer who carries orders for a general
or colonel is the adjutant, and the soldier who fulfils
the same function for an officer is an or dinar etz. The
terms which denote the different arms of the service
are also of foreign origin: such are artilleriia, kaval-

72 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Uriia, sapiory (sappers), and those which serve to denote
various military constructions : such as bastidn, shdntzy
(from the German schanzen), fortifikdtsiya, etc. Of
alien origin also are the terms denoting the institutions
of the medical service and the military supply service:
gdspital, lazaret, intendantsvo, etc.1

But I must not linger over these details, although
they are interesting and worthy of attention.

In confining myself to these few brief hints and
returning to the general problem, I must remark that
the pacific mentality of the Russian people has been pre-
served by the labouring masses down to our own day,
and we shall find it, for example, in the ideology of the
numerous religious sects of our times. While still a
pagan, the Russian Slav had not, among his gods, any
god of war analogous to the Greek Ares or the Roman
Mars. Having become a Christian, he attributed pacific
characteristics even to those of the Christian saints
whom the West had endowed with a bellicose character.
The religious strata of the mass of the Russian people
had no need of a god of war, cruel, vindictive, mur-
derous, and destructive. In the profoundest manifes-
tations of their religious sense and their poetical genius
they have constantly introduced an element of hostility
to war, an ideal of peace (which in general, however,
has admitted of defensive war), and very large numbers
of Russian sectarians have paid by imprisonment or
deportation for the crime of preferring the god of peace
to the god of war.

The natural pacifism of the Russian people, which is
attested even by military specialists (for example, by
General Kuropatkin in his Memoirs of the Russo-
Japanese W.ar), is of great importance in that it facili-

1 However, some military terms have for some time been originated
from Russian words. Such, for example, is the onomatopoeic fushka,
for cannon. The common soldier is known as riadovol, from riad
(rank) ; the sentinel is called tshassovol, from the word tshas (hour),
etc. The machine gun has been newly baptized : it is known as the
pulcmidt, from pulia (bullet), and metal (to throw) ; and so forth.

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 73

tates the possibility of establishing amicable relations
between Russia and other nations. It is an incontest-
able fact that after a war fought by Russia against
this or that other nation, our people retains no resent-
ment, no hatred of its recent enemy, and is ready on
the morrow of a sanguinary conflict to treat him as
a friend.

The Russian people is a pacific people, and yet its
history is full of wars. In the last two centuries — the
eighteenth and the nineteenth, to confine ourselves to
these — no less than 128 years and 4 months were times
of armed conflict, which leaves 7 1 years and 8 months
of peace. Of the 35 wars which Russia fought during
these two centuries, 2 were internal and 33 were
external. Twenty-two were wars of conquest, their
object being the extension of the national territory,
and these inflicted upon the nation 101 years of war-
fare. Four were purely defensive wars ; these lasted
4^ years. The rest were of a mixed or special
character, and absorbed only 10 years. As for the
internal wars (in the Caucasus and in Asia), these lasted
65 years.

This long succession of wars called to arms at least
ten millions of men (according to the official statistics,
which in this case are not inclined toward exaggera-
tion 1), and a third part of them was lost.1

We shall concern ourselves, in the present work, only
with those of Russia's wars which were waged against
European States, or which were connected with the
problems of Europeanizing Russian life.

' General Kuropatkin, Memoirs of the Russo-Japanese War, ch. i.

CHAPTER II

I. The struggle for the shores of the Baltic Sea as a " window facing
Europe"— The Livonian wars of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. II. The "Period of Disturbances "—The wars of the
seventeenth century— The Russo-Swedish War under Peter the
Great — Its results and its influence.

I

From the beginnings of her history down to the end of
the fifteenth century, when (in 1480) she shook off the
" Tartar yoke," to which she had been subjected for
more than two hundred years, Russia was confronted,
in the south and the south-east, by the invasions of the
Asiatic tribes, which rose again and again in gigantic
waves. But the moment she was free from the Tartar
dominion she resolutely turned her arms and her
diplomacy against her Western enemies and neigh-
bours ; for the first time she was really in contact with
Europe.

On this side she at first encountered Livonia, then in
the hands of the Livonian Order, and allied against
Russia with Lithuania and Poland.

The real conflict with Livonia, however, commenced
only later, under Ivan the Terrible, whose Government
had set itself the definite aim of winning ports (Narva
and Reval) on the Baltic Sea. Thus the desire to
possess a " window open upon Europe," which is always
attributed to Peter the Great, very obviously existed
in the mind of his terrible ancestor, who was a tyrant
to his subjects, but who was very well aware of Russia's
need of relations with the Western world.

So Russia's " love affair with Europe " began mid-

T4

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 75

way through the sixteenth century ; and it still survives,
after passing through alternate periods of diplomatic
negotiation and military activity to the impulses of
affection and of passionate and disinterested sympathy
which the elite of Russia conceived for "the West."

" The object of the Livonian War was to gain posses-
sion of commercial highways. . . . Subsequent events
have proved that for Russia the possibility of a process
of economic evolution, however it might advance, was
almost entirely subordinated to the existence of direct
relations with the more progressive nations of Europe.
Contemporaries felt and expressed this very plainly.
The port of Narva (Narew), which remained in Russian
hands even after her first losses, seriously preoccu-
pied our competitors. ' The Muscovite sovereign is daily
augmenting his power by the acquisition of objects
imported through Narva,' wrote the Polish king, in
his embarrassment, to Elizabeth, Queen of England,
seeking to divert the English from trading with
Moscow ; ' for they import by this route not only
merchandise, but also weapons which to him (Ivan
IV) were unknown before. . . . Hitherto we have been
able to conquer him because he was without learning
and knew nothing of the arts. But if the trade with
Narva continues, what will remain unknown to him? '
In Moscow, too, this was understood ; and as the port
of Narva was only a narrow wicket-gate opening upon
the West, they wished to acquire a wider path of access
by seizing one of the large ports of the Baltic Sea. But
the repeated attempts to conquer Reval (in 1570 and
1577) ended merely in a war with Sweden, in which
the Muscovites lost even Narva— and also its Russian
suburb, Ivangorod. They were thus completely cut
off from the Baltic Sea. During the last years of his life
Ivan the Terrible thought no more of conquest in the
West ; he was driven to defend himself, and was
thankful not to lose what belonged to him." «

But although the Livonian wars did not yield Ivan
' M. Pokrovsky, Russian History, vol. ii. p. 128.

76 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

III, Vassili III, and Ivan the Terrible the desired fruit,
they did at least convince them of the great difference
between East and West, even in this one matter of the
art of war. Those who had defeated the Tartars found
themselves powerless before the Europeans. This lesson
was of profit to them. They began to take foreign
soldiers into their service, at first singly, but then in
batches. These soldiers formed private corps, but
presently, in the first half of the seventeenth century,
they were occupied principally in the work of instructing
Russian recruits, who were made up into " regiments
organized in the foreign mode." Finally, in the second
half of the seventeenth century, the old militia was
wholly suppressed, and was replaced by cavalry con-
sisting of dragouny and rditary and infantry of
" regiments of solddty."

The Livonian wars assisted the Europeanization of
Russia in a very curious fashion. The prisoners
taken by the Russians — Lithuanians, Poles, Germans,
Livonians, etc. — were transported into the interior of
the country, and there became the sponsors of Western
culture.

On the 24th of February, 1556, the Governor of
Novgorod received from Ivan the Terrible an order
couched in the following terms : " In Novgorod, in
the suburbs, provinces, and market towns, you will on
divers occasions cause it to be cried in the market-places
that it is not permitted that the sons of boyars, nor any
other persons, shall sell German prisoners to the
Germans of Livonia, nor send them to Lithuania, but
only to Muscovite towns. I shall bestow marks of my
favour on the sons of boyars who shall inform me that
any one has sold German prisoners to the Germans ;
and a man of base condition will receive 50 roubles
from him he has denounced. As for the vendors, they
will be thrown into prison while awaiting our decision.
If in the house of a son of a boyar or another there
should be found a German prisoner who understands
how to discover silver ore, or how to treat silver, gold,

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 77

copper, or tin, or is acquainted with any other trade,
you will give orders that this prisoner shall be brought
to me in Moscow."

M. Ischchanian remarks in this connection: "Such
is the irony of fate that the bearers of Western civiliza-
tion were forced as slaves to cultivate and Europeanize
the barbarous East."

Russian history in this particular repeats a phase of
Roman history, for the Greek prisoners of ancient Rome
imported with them the high culture of Hellenism.

Some of the prisoners brought back from Livonia by
Ivan the Terrible were distributed among the various
provincial towns ; others, taken to Moscow, had
assigned to them a special quarter known as the
Nimetzkdia Sloboda (literally the German suburb ;
but the word nemetz, which signifies " German " jn
modern Russian, formerly meant "foreigner"; it is
derived from nem, nemoi, the meaning of which is
dumb). The Tsar granted those prisoners established
in Moscow certain fiscal privileges ; they had the right
to sell brandy without a licence. Very soon this little
colony was in a flourishing condition. But in a fit of
tyrannical fury Ivan the Terrible treated these strangers
in a manner already so familiar to his Russian subjects ;
in 1578 the Sloboda was pillaged, ruined, and laid
waste, by direct order of the Tsar, by his famous guard
of opritshniki.

However, the foreign prisoners appeared so useful
to Russia that Boris Godunov accorded them various
favours ; he restored their personal liberty, and granted
them the rights enjoyed by other inhabitants of the
Russian States.

Under one of the first Tsars of the Romanov dynasty
the re-establishment of the " foreign suburb " was
authorized in Moscow. This was in 1652, and once
again there existed, in the midst of the Russian capital,
a little town peopled by foreigners.

This colony, consisting at first of a few voluntary
immigrants and prisoners of war, became the centre

78 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

of a stable and permanent influence ; and the Inozem-
skaia Sloboda, established in 1652, was Peter the
Great's first European school.

II

The period extending from the reign of Ivan the
Terrible to the accession of the first Romanov, which
is known by the expressive name of the Period of
Disturbances (literally " the troubled times "), was full
of civil discord, jn which were involved not only the
various classes of Russian society, but also the
foreigners. The most famous protagonist of this great
upheaval, Dimitri-Samozvanetz (the Impostor), who
claimed to be a son of Ivan the Terrible, and who
for a few months even occupied the Muscovite throne,
was the instrument of the boyar opposition, and, at
the same time, of Poland, who provided him with arms
and soldiers. His rival, Vassili Shnisky, was supported
by a section of the boyars and the middle classes and
by the English traders. He also applied to the Swedes,
and, in order to fight Dimitri, he engaged a corps of
Swedish soldiers commanded by his young nephew,
Prince Mikhail Skopine-Shnisky.

Frenchmen also took part in the struggle, as volun-
teers ; some — the Huguenots — serving under Shnisky
with his Swedes ; others— the Catholics — on the side of
Dimitri and his Poles. One of the Catholics, Captain
Margaret, has left us an account of his sojourn in
Russia, in which he informs his compatriots that the
land of the Tsar is " greater, more powerful, more
abundant and more populous than is supposed," that it
" extends Christianity far into the East," and that the
Russians felt a peculiar esteem for France and the
French king.1

While the French went to fight in Russia only as
amateurs, each according to his preference, and actuated
by a thirst for glory, gold, and adventure, the Poles and
Swedes were incited by their political ambitions.
* Margaret, Elat de I Empire de Russie.

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 79

Profiting by the disorder prevailing in Russia, Poland
occupied the Russian territories of the kWiest, together
with the city of Smolensk. Sweden seized upon
Novgorod. The Poles penetrated as far as the walls
of Moscow, which they besieged (in 1610) in company
with one of the numerous false Dimitris, imitators of
Dimitri I and pretenders to the Muscovite throne. The
Polish crown prince, Vladislav, also attempted to gain
the throne. In 1610 the boyars, and the dvorianie,
weary of the struggle, recognized him as the Tsar of
Russia, after concluding a treaty with him which
granted certain political and social privileges to the
nobility, and in particular increased its power over
the serfs.

For a time, then, the orthodox Russia of the Tsars,

a semi-Asiatic Power, shared a common dynasty with

Poland, Catholic, feudalized, and " Europeanized," and

was subjected to the tutelage of Poland. WJ10 can

say what would have been the course of Russian history

had the Polish Tsar remained in power? But he was

unable to overcome the opposition of the bourgeoisie,

the peasantry, the clergy, and a portion of the provincial

nobility. A great popular movement was initiated to

" unite " Russia and to put an end to the constant

disturbances. Directed against the intrusion of

foreigners, it was of a national and patriotic character.

M Enemies are rending the Muscovite State on every

side ; we have become an object of shame and reproach

to all neighbouring sovereigns," said a proclamation

issued in 1 6 1 2, calling the people to the defence of

the country. In 862, according to the legend, the

Russians spontaneously invited certain Scandinavian

princes to come and reign over them > in 16.1 2 they

rose that they might no longer be subject to a Polish

prince. So in eight hundred years they had learned

to regard themselves as a nation, opposed to other

nations, even to others of Slav origin.

Vladislav was driven from the throne, but he would
not renounce his claims nor surrender to Russia the

80 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

western provinces which were occupied by Poland. Only
in 1634, after two long campaigns, did Vladislav
abandon his " rights " to the Russian throne, but he
still retained Smolensk and some other towns. Another
war broke out in 1654, and continued, interrupted
by an armistice, until 1667. It left the city of
Smolensk in Russian hands, and the whole of the
Ukrainian territory on the left bank of the Dnieper,
together with Kiev, while Lithuania remained Polish.
The provisional treaty, which was concluded in 1667
for a term of thirteen years, was confirmed in 1686 ;
Russia thereupon signed a " perpetual peace " with
Poland, and entered the league of Poland, Austria,
and Venice against Turkey.

The war with Sweden for the recovery of Novgorod
commenced immediately after the advent of the first
Romanov. At the end of four years, in 16.1 7, Russia
recovered the city of Novgorod, but the Swedes retained
a considerable portion of the territory of Novgorod
and the Baltic shore. Forty years later a fresh war
with Sweden enabled Russia to occupy a good part
of Livonia, together with Diinabourg (Dvinsk) and
Dorpat (Youriev) ; but complications in the Ukraine
forced her to make peace in 1661 and to restore
her conquests.

Finally, Sweden remained mistress of the whole of
the Baltic shore, whence she could constantly menace
Russia and cut off all direct communication with
Western Europe.

Thus the road to the sea undertaken by Ivan the
Terrible was not completed until the reign of Peter
the Great, who had to repeat all the efforts of his
predecessors.

Ill

The war between Peter the Great and Charles XII
lasted for twenty-one years. On the Russian side a
total of 1,700,000 men took part in this war. Of
these 120,000 perished, and 500,000 were discharged

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 81

on account of sickness. The war ended in 1721 with
the final triumph of Russia, whose territory was
increased by the addition of Ingermanland, Esthonia,
Livonia, and a small portion of Finland, the whole
covering an area of 180,000 square miles.

The true value of this conquest, to Russia, resided
not in the territorial aggrandizement which it accom-
plished, but in the ports, those outlets to the Baltic
Sea, on which her whole future depended, and whose
possession assured the realization of many other plans.

"He had need of a port on the east of the
Baltic Sea for the execution of alt his ideas" said
Voltaire of Peter the Great in his History of
Charles X//J

The most important of these ideas was to open a
direct and rapid means of communication between Y
Europe and Russia.

From the economic point of view, this result was
attained by the conquest of Riga and the " construc-
tion " of Petersburg (in 1703). After creating the
port of Petersburg, Peter concentrated the foreign trade
of the country there, to the detriment of Archangel,
which toward the end of his reign fell into a state
of decadence.

Between 1 7 1 7 and 1 7 1 9 the value of the annual
import trade of Archangel was 2,344,000 roubles, and
that of Petersburg only 269 roubles. In 1726 the
imports of Archangel had fallen to 285,000 roubles,
while those of Petersburg had risen to 2,403,000.

As for Riga, Narva, and Reval, Russia had had
commercial relations with these ports before the Russo-
Swedish war of 1700-21, which certainly increased
her chances of conquering the littoral, as these relations
had resulted in a wave of " Russophilia " among the
influential representatives of the wealthy bourgeoisie
of Riga, and even the Livonian nobility.

The victory of Russia enormously affected inter-
national relations with that country. Sweden was then

' Book I.

6

82 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

one of the most powerful States of Europe, and her
conqueror could not fail to acquire a great prestige.
Possibly Voltaire exaggerated in saying of Russia that
" this immense country was hardly known in Europe
before the Tsar Peter." But it is true that under
Peter " the Muscovite State, for the first time, entered,
as an active and inseparable member, the family of
the European Powers, and played its part in inter-
national relations." ' It mingled in them even during
Peter's campaigns, because "with his principal enemies
Peter fought in another manner to that of his pre-
decessors ; he waged war by means of coalitions and
alliances."

As a mark of the great development of Russo-
European relations, we may note the appearance in
Europe of Russian consular agents. On the i 5th of
March, 1 7 1 5, Jean Lefort was appointed Russian agent
in Paris by Peter the Great, with the title of
" Commercial Councillor " ; and his brother Amidee
Lefort was appointed " Commercial Consul," also in
Paris. In the deed of appointment it is stated that
" the good order of trade and the necessity of fore-
seeing all difficulties require that Russia shall have
in the ports and other localities of the kingdom of
France, where our subjects, merchants or others, may
exercise their trade, a reliable person having experience
of trade, who might in such difficulties as arise, and in
all other cases, be of assistance to our traders."

Consuls and commercial agents were next appointed
at Spa, Antwerp, Breslau, Vienna, Liege, Bordeaux, and
Cadiz.

The war with Sweden brought Peter into contact
with the German States. " Unhappily, amid his allies
he numbered Brandenburg and Hanover, whose Elector
became, at this very moment, King of England, and
a new passion seized upon Peter : the desire to
intervene in German affairs. He dispersed his nieces

■ Klutshcvsky, The Course of Russian History, Part iv. p. 66, Moscow,
1910.

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 83

in many obscure corners of German territory ; he
married one to the Duke of Courland, another to the
Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin ; Peter was thus drawn
into the petty court intrigues and participated in the
petty dynastic interests of the enormous feudal spider's
web which enveloped the great cultivated nation." *

I insist on these facts because they had the effect
of bringing German influence to bear on the highest
governing circles in Russia. Some years after the
death of Peter this influence placed a German Duchess
on the throne. It had other consequences also, of
which I shall speak further on.

The war with Sweden, which altered the international
situation of Russia, at the same time left its mark
on her internal politics. All the historians of Peter
the Great's reforms are agreed on this point. Professor
V. Klutshevsky even asserts that " the war was the-
most important of those factors to which the reforms
of Peter the Great owe their character."

Having entered upon a desperate conflict with a
truly European Power, Russia could only fight that
Power with the same European weapons. This
necessity was Russia's great motive power. By
" weapons " we do not mean simply the instruments
of military action : men and material. These it was
not difficult to procure, and Peter succeeded in
procuring them in a manner more or less satisfactory,
with the assistance of his foreign councillors ; he
reorganized the land army and created a fleet, the
germ of which was an old English canoe, found by
Peter among the objects of all kinds which attracted
his childlike curiosity. But the question was not
merely one of armaments ; I the entire fabric of Russian
life was to be reconstructed. The military failures,
which were almost uninterrupted during the first eight
years of the war, were extremely useful in this connec-
tion, as they showed Peter that he would have to go
to school with his conqueror. And' he himself was
■ Klutshevsky, op. cit. p. 75.

84 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

fond of saying that he had spent " three scholastic
periods " in this school (the duration of studies being,
in those days, seven years).

History has preserved for us the words spoken by
Peter a,t the banquet which followed the victory of
Poltava (July 8, 1709), to which he invited the Swedish
generals who had been taken prisoner.

" To the health," he said, " of my masters in the
art of war ! " Rehnskold asked him who those were
whom he honoured by so fine a title. " You, the
Swedish generals," was the Tsar's reply.

It was indeed a fact that Peter's government had
taken Sweden as its model. We shall presently see
that it more than once endeavoured to copy Sweden.

IV

The war with Sweden, the principal source of the
internal reforms introduced by Peter, had a very un-
favourable influence on the appearance and develop-
ment of these reforms.

" The work of reform went on amid the tumult and
confusion which habitually accompany a war. The
necessities and embarrassments continually provoked by
military action forced Peter to hurry himself. Pressed
by circumstances, the work of reform assumed a feverish
pace, and was effected with unnatural precipitation.
Amid the anxieties of the war Peter had no time to
pull up, to discuss his measures quietly, to deliberate
over them at leisure, to determine on their execution,
j and to allow them to ripen naturally. He demanded
rapid 'performance and immediate results. . . . Peter
relied only on the power of authority ; he did not
attempt to win men's minds. Governing the State from
a campaigning-carriage or a posting-house, he could
perceive nothing but the matter in hand; he did not
think of the human element, and, trusting to the power
of authority, he reckoned too little with the power of
the passive masses . . . amid which the structure of
his novelties encountered but insecure and shifting foun-

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 85

dations. His reforms fell like a waterspout on the
people, alarming every one and remaining an enigma
to all."

So spoke one of those who knew Peter best, and
who at the same time was one of his fervent admirers.
The people did not comprehend the tendency or the
bearing of all the changes which were imposed upon
it, and had no time for reflection. Throughout almost
the whole of Peter's reign Russia was fighting a very,
onerous war. The continual levies of men and the
uninterrupted increase of taxes presented only the worse
side of Peter's work to the people. And this was all
the people could see. Hence its hatred for the Tsar ;
hence the legends which spread through the Empire,
representing the innovator as the enemy of his own
subjects, as a " foreigner," an impostor, and even as
the Antichrist.

Peter's internal policy, under the spur of war, thus
assumed the aspect of a catastrophe and a revolution.
Now, although the people will often gladly accept a
revolution which is its own work, it usually refuses to
approve of one coming " from above." The conjunc-
tures in which Peter operated, his system of acting
by violence — manu mititari — aggravated the popular dis-
content. When the Tsar died the public opinion was
that he could not have lived longer because M the people
had cursed him."

CHAPTER III

I. The war of 1812 and the Russo-Swedish War. II. The causes of
the war against Napoleon — Economic relations between Russia
and England— The "Continental Blockade" and its effects on
Russian economy. III. Two periods of the war of 1812— Official
patriotism and popular patriotism. IV. The Holy Alliance
and Legitimism — The Russian reaction. V. The effects of the
war on the people and the "intellectuals" — The Decembrists.
VI. The effects of the war in Poland.

The war designed to acquire the " window opening upon
Europe " was national as regards its general and remote
results, because it promised a whole country the possi-
bility of free development and of maintaining relations
with other more civilized nations. But it was not
national in the sense that it was understood and sanc-
tioned by the people, foFit was the Government which
decided upon the war and brought matters to a head,
despite the opposition of the people.

The war of 1 8 1 2 was very different : it may be
regarded as the first really national and popular war
undertaken by Russia. But it did not immediately
become so.

II

At the outset Russia's conflict with Napoleon was
powerless to rouse the people, because it resulted from
problems of European significance, rather than the
national interests of Russia. Its first cause, as we
know, was the rivalry between France and England.

At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of
the nineteenth century Russia was maintaining highly
developed economic relations with England. She sent
her agricultural products thither and received in ex-

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 87

change threads and yarns, which she wove into cloth.
M England furnished us with the products of her manu-
factures and her colonies in exchange for the raw
products of our soil," says a contemporary (Fone-
Vizine). " This trade opened up the only routes by
which Russia received all that was necessary to her.
The nobility made certain of drawing the revenues
of its estates by exporting oversea wheat, timber for
shipbuilding and for masts and spars, tallow, hemp,
flax, etc." The Russian export traders also had close
relations with England ; so that two highly influential
sections of Russian society were economically inclined
to be Anglophile. This was well understood in France,
and in- 1803 the French Ambassador in Petersburg
wrote to his Government that Russia was too closely
attached to England by her trade to be particularly
desirous of maintaining peace with France.

Moreover, the majority of the greater nobles and of the
governing classes hated France as a revolutionary country.

An alliance of Russia and England against France
was thus inevitable. It is true that Alexander I was
restrained by the fear of Napoleon's bayonets, and was
even impelled to effect momentary reconciliations with
France, but these only emphasized the solidity of the
Anglo-Russian friendship and the fragility of the
Franco-Russian ties. Particularly was this the case
after the Peace of Tilsit (1807), which brought Russia
into the orbit of the French economic policy, by associ-
ating her with the Continental Blockade which was
directed against England. The Treaty of Tilsit was
signed in July 1807, but by October of the same
year the French Ambassador to Russia, Savary, stated
that the closing of Russian ports to English vessel's
was causing great dissatisfaction to the Russian com-
mercial classes, as their exports were threatened, and
also to the buyers of English produce. In vain did
Savary endeavour to raise the exchange value of the
rouble, which had fallen upon the interruption of rela-
tions with England, spreading the rumour in Petersburg

88 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

that France was proposing to buy twenty million francs'
worth of Russian merchandise ; this promise offered only
a very meagre compensation for the great losses incurred.

It is true that although agriculture suffered by the
Continental Blockade, certain industries gained greatly
thereby, owing to the elimination of English competi-
tion. But the middle-class manufacturers and indus-
trialized nobles who were benefited by the blockade
were only a small minority, and had no say in matters
of foreign policy.

Two years after the Peace of Tilsit the blockade
was in reality broken by Russia, as she authorized
the importation of English merchandise under the
American flag. The rupture with France, which had
become inevitable, was hastened by other causes of a
political and even of a personal nature. In 1812 the
" patriotic war " commenced and the Russian Army
crossed the Niemen.

Ill

We must distinguish two periods in this war. The
first was the period of official and superficial patriotism,
of thoughtless boasting, of pompous proclamations which
denied the courage of the French Army. It ended,
as might have been expected, in a series of Russian
defeats and the occupation of Moscow.

The Government and the nobility were overwhelmed.
Alexander I hid himself from the people in his palace ;
and his sister, the Grand Duchess Yekaterina Pavlovna,
wrote to him uncompromisingly that " he must very
well understand what happens in a country whose ruler
is despised." Many of the nobles were afraid at once
of Napoleon and of their own peasants, whom they had
oppressed, and who might have found, in this war, an
opportunity to revolt.

But it was precisely the masses of the people, the
peasants, who in 18 12 represented the true patriotism,
together with an enlightened minority of nobles, from
which issued, at a later date, the first Russian Con-
stitutionalists.

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 89

M Salvation came from below, from this mass of
serfs, who commenced, in a spirit of abnegation, a
popular war. Stein (the Prussian Minister) was
perfectly right when he said (in a letter to Gneisenau)
that ' the people has reached the supreme degree of
fury, and the Emperor could not conclude peace — at
least, if he had any regard for his personal safety.'
The popular war was the natural consequence of the
gloomy distrust which the people entertained in respect
of authority. . . . The fundamental, principal, and
almost the only cause of the victory of 1812 was the
coming into action of the popular masses against the
armies of Napoleon." »

The memoirs relating to the war of 18 12 leave us
convinced that it was not the Government which, as
in the war with Charles XII, displayed the greatest
vigour and activity ; it was the people which, inter-
vening like a force of nature, saved Russia from the
Napoleonic invasion.

" All the orders and all the efforts of the Govern-
ment would not have sufficed to expel the Gauls and
the dozen other peoples who invaded Russia with them,
had the people remained in its old condition of torpor,"
said a witness of events, the Decembrist Yakushkin.
"It was not upon the order of the authorities that the
inhabitants of the country withdrew into the forests
and marshes on the arrival of the French, surrendering
their homes to be burned. It was not upon the order
of the authorities that the whole population of Moscow
left the ancient capital with the army. To the right
and the left, along the Riazan road, the fields were
covered by a many-coloured host, and I can still
remember, to-day, the words of a soldier who was
marching beside me, ' Thanks to God, all Russia is on
the march I ' "

This Russia which was v on the march " saved her-
self, despite the collapse of her Government. And

' N. Rojkov, The Year 181 2 and its Influence on Contemporary
Russian Society (Sovremanny Mir, 1912, vii., Petersburg).

90 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

it was only when the war of legitimate defence was
over, and the enemy driven from the national soil, that
the Government resumed the direction of the war,
passing to the offensive and pursuing the French armies
across Europe, in company with two professional
masters of international spoliation : the Prussian and
Austrian monarchies.

IV

The triumph of Alexander I over Napoleon enabled
him, in 1 8 1 5, to form, with his two autocratic allies,
the Holy Alliance, which was perfectly natural, for
between the three Conservative monarchies — Russian,
Austrian, and Prussian — there existed a reciprocal
attraction. But they were united only in their hatred
of France and of Napoleon, himself a despot, but " the
offspring of the Revolution." By their victory over
him it seemed to them that they had overcome the
revolutionary movement. In the dogma of legitimacy,
the defence of which constituted the essential point
of the policy of the Holy Alliance, was expressed not
merely the antipathy of the " hereditary " monarchs
for a " parvenu," but also the claim to inviolability
put forward by autocratic power regularly transmitted.

In order to be regarded as inviolable, the authority
of the monarch must prevail by supernatural virtue.
The fortunate issue of the war against Napoleon, to
which Alexander I personally contributed so little, im-
pelled him towards mysticism. Unwilling to refer the
success of his armies to the efforts and sacrifices of
the people, he attributed it to Divine intervention. "In
this great task, which was above human strength,
recognize only the Providence of God," he said in
his manifesto. He expressed the same idea in a private
conversation held at Vilna, when he stated that " the
Lord Jesus alone is the true conqueror, and has
liberated the country from the invasion of ferocious
enemies."

Alexander never doubted that it was logical that

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 91

the Divine Providence and the will of Jesus should
select the Russian Tsar as their instrument upon earth.
If he appeared fairly modest in his conversations with
Mme. de Stnc;l — " I am," he told her, " merely a happy
accident in the life of the peoples " — he spoke more
frankly to Baronne de Kriidner, assuring her of his
conviction that his acts were in perfect harmony with
the will of God.

This doctrine bore disastrous fruit in the foreign
policy of Russia, as well as in her domestic policy.
The Holy Alliance began its work in defence of
legitimacy by the restoration of the royal power in
France, where two bloody revolutions were necessary
to repair its error.

From 1 8 1 5 onwards the Russian autocracy became
a sort of " international policeman," and acted accord-
ingly. It was thus led into grievous errors, the chief
of which was committed in 1848, when the successor
of Alexander I, in the name of order and legitimacy,
placed his armies at the service of the Austrian
monarchy, in order to crush the Hungarian revolu-
tion, saving Austria from inevitable ruin and irreme-
diably alienating from Russia the best elements of
Hungarian society. The results of this policy are
perceptible even to-day.

As for the domestic life of Russia, the war of 1 8 1 2
inoculated it with two species of germs. On its subjects
the autocracy, from 1 8 1 5 onwards, imposed the system
of which it was the champion abroad ; and it was they
who suffered the worst effects of this system. An era
of the gloomiest reaction was inaugurated, and, accord-
ing to the expression of one of the men most prominent
at this period, the people were treated " like a flock
of sheep," who had to be " sufficiently nimble " to
make it possible to " lead " them towards the goal of
their enemies. This oppression, which was steeped in
mysticism, had certain points of likeness to the Holy
Inquisition : for instance, in the zeal of the monks, its
most notable and its best-qualified instruments.

92 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

On the masses of the people and the more
enlightened minds of the country, the war of 1812
had quite another effect.

The Decembrist, Yakushkin, whose Memoirs I have
already cited, states that it " awakened the Russian
people to life, and formed an important period of its
political existence." Another Decembrist, A. Bestoujev,
in his letter to Alexander I, wrote that " Napoleon
having invaded Russia,- the Russian people, for the first
time, was conscious of its strength. It was precisely
at this moment that the desire for independence arose
in every heart ; political independence first (that is,
external independence), and then popular. This was
the birth of Liberal aspirations in Russia." Bestoujev
also explains, in a fashion even more characteristic,
the state of mind prevalent in Russia after the war : —

v The soldiers said : 4 We have spilt our blood, and
they make us sweat in our lords' fields ; we have
freed our country from the tyrant, and we are tyrannized
over by our masters.' "

As a result of the war, therefore, the protest against
serfdom became keener and keener amid the rural
population ; and after the lapse of a few years a series
of rural disturbances commenced which continued, with
intervals, until the abolition of serfdom (in 1861).

The influence of the war of 1 8 1 2 caused an even more
direct and remarkable upheaval in the intellectual world.

At first this upheaval took the form of a general
awakening of the spirit of citizenship among the officers,
who then formed a sort of intellectual ilite. A con-
temporary states that the campaigns of 1 8 1 2- 1 4
4* exalted the soul of our army in an extraordinary
fashion, especially in the case of the young officers.
. . . The majority of the officers of the Guard and
the Staff returned to Petersburg in 1 8 1 5 with a con-
sciousness of their dignity and full of a sublime Jove
for their native country."

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 93

Moreover, their sojourn in foreign countries had made
an immediate impression on them.

" During their marches across Germany and France
our young officers learned to understand European civi-
lization, which impressed them all the more in that
they were able to compare it with what they beheld
at every step in their own country : the enslavement
of the great majority of Russians, the cruelty of chiefs
toward their subordinates, the abuses of power of every
kind, the arbitrary rule which everywhere made its
rigour felt. All this revolted the educated Russians and
hurt their patriotism." "

M. Emile Haumant, in his Culture f ran guise en
Russie, cites a number of such observers : —

" Many of us," writes one of the officers who took
part in the war, " became acquainted with German
officers who were members of the Tugendbund, and
afterwards with some of the French Liberals. . . .
In conversing with them we made our own, although
we did not realize this, their manner of thinking and
their love of representative institutions, and we blushed
for our own country, humiliated by tyranny." The
more they saw of the countries moulded by French
institutions, the more the spectacle of their relative
prosperity impressed the Russians. A mere rebellion
of the lower classes — a jacquerie pure and simple —
could never have created' such wealth ; so that there
were evidently beneficent revolutions. On the other
hand, events went to prove that the stability of thrones,
for which they were fighting, was a very uncertain
dogma. " .We saw on every side thrones restored and
overthrown ... so that our minds became accustomed
to revolutions, their possibility, and the profit to be
derived from them," and this all the more rapidly
because, in the general chaos, " the majority of the
revolutionary institutions were preserved, and, there-
fore, were recognized as good." " Finally," says M.
Haumant, M the conquerors perceived that with all their
glory they, were not so well off as the conquered." 2
1 Rojkov, op. cit. a Emile Haumant, op. cit. pp. 320-21.

04 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

The Russian officers profited by their stay in France
to become acquainted with French ideas and with the
political literature -of France. While the other Allies
mostly frequented the Royalist salons, the Russians
ventured to enter into close relations with the revolu-
tionaries, and even the " suspects," and to study the
formation and the statutes of the secret political
societies. Prompt to utilize what they had lately
learned, they began to teach their soldiers, applying
to the process the Lancastrian method. According to
several observers, " the blows which were constantly
given in the other Allied armies were banished from
the Russian corps stationed in France."

So it was with new habits, a new spirit, and a
new state of mind that all this military youth returned
to Russia. But there disillusion awaited it. An oppres-
sive reactionary regime barred the way to generous
aspirations and schemes of liberation. A clash was
inevitable ; it came ten years later, on the 14th of
December, 1825 ; some officers who had taken part
in the campaigns of 18 12- 14 attempted a military
insurrection with a view to establishing a Constitution.

So it was that the war of 1 8 1 2 gave rise to ia
'•' revolution from below," just as the struggle with
Charles XII had caused a " revolution from above."
Peter I had imposed his authority, despite the oppo-
sition of the people. The Decembrists took up arms for
the liberation of the people from autocratic authority.

One of these Decembrists, the poet Lorer, has summed
up the meaning of the war of 181 2 in some ver
which put into the mouth of Napoleon the following

words : —

. . . Russia is my rival,
But Fate my conqueror. . . .
I followed not the steps of Batou-Khan,
I fought not without reason ; was not moved
By the vanity of glory . . .
I have seen Moscow's ashes, but am not
Another Erostrates. . . .

... I willed, with iron hand,
Sudden to seize the centuries' coming void :

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 95

Those centuries I summoned ere the hour,
To snap the rusty chain of prejudice,
And urge the idle giant upward still
Toward a higher goal of life.1

The " idle giant," Russia, was rudely shaken by
the war upon Napoleon, but not sufficiently so to snap
the rusty chain of the ancien regime. The rising of
the Decembrists was stifled by the Government, and it
was only thirty years later, after a fresh international
upheaval, after the Crimean War, that the fetters of
Russia began to fall off her.

VI

But we must speak a few words as to Napoleon's
relations with Poland.

While the great Revolution was nearing accomplish-
ment— while in France the old order was falling in
ruins — Poland, in 1795, was finally destroyed, and
shared between the three neighbour monarchies — Russia,
Austria, and Prussia.

From the standpoint of the interests of Russia (that
is, of the whole Russian people, and not only of the
bureaucracy and the ruling circles) it was a great mis-
take to take a hand in the murder and dismemberment
of her neighbour. Even to-day this is very evident.
Russia has deprived herself of a barrier between herself
and the Germanic States, and is in immediate contact
with Germany and Austria. The dismemberment of
their little kingdom, which would have been impos-
sible without the participation of Russia, filled the Poles
with hatred of the Empire. Their enslavement became a
painful wound in the flank of the Russian Empire, which
on two occasions bled profusely, in 1831 and in 1863.

The violence done to Poland was and is still ex-
ploited by Russia's rivals, and has complicated the
external situation without in any way fortifying it.

Napoleon I understood the profit to be derived from

■ Lorer, Napoleon. (See the collection, The War of 1812 in Russian
Poetry, p. 129, Moscow, 1912.)

96 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Poland, utilizing her as one of the levers of his anti-
Russian policy ; all the more easily because, before
the last partition of Poland, many of the irreducible
Polish patriots had taken refuge in France, and a
mutual sympathy united the defenders of national inde-
pendence and the French democracy. Here Napoleon
had a means of action at his disposal, and he made use
of it, during and even before the war of 1806-7,
posing as a champion of the Polish claims. But he
offered the Poles a mirage only ; for in 1807 he did not
impose on Alexander, as a condition, sine qua tvon, of
peace, the restoration of Poland. The Treaty of Tilsit
confined itself to creating a Grand Duchy of Warsaw,
formed out of Prussian Poland, and given as booty to
the Elector of Saxony.

But, thanks to this symbol, this fiction of an indepen-
dent Polish State, Napoleon was able to retain the
sympathies of the Poles, for whom he was the only
friendly monarch in Europe. And in 181 2 the Polish
Eagles hovered above the Franco-Russian battlefields
beside the standards of Napoleon.

Napoleon's Polophile diplomacy had its effect upon
Russian politics, for Alexander I could not allow the
Poles to regard France as their liberator. He him-
self said, in his secret instructions to Novossiltzev,
who was charged with confidential negotiations with
England : —

" The most powerful weapon which the French have
employed hitherto, and with which they are still
threatening all other States, is the idea, which they have
managed to diffuse abroad, that their cause is the
cause of the liberty and happiness of the nations.
. . . The welfare of humanity, the true interest of the
legitimate authorities, and the success of the under-
taking meditated by the two Powers (Russia and
England) demand that these shall wrest this formidable
weapon from the hands of the French, and, having seized
it, use it against the latter.

It thus appears that the proposal to set up an

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 97

autonomous Poland, on which Alexander so insisted
at the Congress of Vienna, and his desire to create a
" phantom Poland," were chiefly due to the necessity
of competing with France and Napoleon.1

The rebirth of the Polish State, the work of the
French Army, and accepted — we know not if it was
sincerely — by Alexander I, was accomplished on the
1 5th of November 1 8 1 5, by the granting of a Con-
stitution to the kingdom of Poland. But as this king-
dom was under the tutelage of Russia, and as Russia
herself was not a constitutional country, the contra-
diction between this semblance of constitutionalism and
the Russian autocracy was to break forth anew and
engender a sanguinary conflict in which the political
individuality of Poland disappeared yet once again.

The confidence of Poland, who had come to regard
France — even the France of Napoleon — as her friend
and liberator, was yet further confirmed by a series
of measures taken by Napoleon in 1807 and 1808,
which were fruitful of results.

Napoleon effected the introduction into the consti-
tutional law of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw of an
article by whose terms serfdom was abolished and
all citizens made equal before the law. In virtue of
this principle, a decree passed about the end of 1807
authorized the peasants freely to leave their masters.
Unhappily, the serfs, while they received their liberty,
were at the same time dispossessed of the lands on
which they had lived, which were recognized as the
property of their seigneurs. Thereupon a portion of
the agricultural population rapidly became a proletariat,
which was quickly invaded by pauperism. But, taking
it all round, the abolition of serfdom gave a great
impulse to the economic and social development of the
country ; it was the ruin of the feudal system, but
profited the middle classes of society.

Another very important measure was the introduction

* See the Mimoires of Talleyrand (Paris, 1891, vols. ii. and iii.) and
the Mimoires of Prince Metternich (Paris, 1886, vol. ii.),

7

98 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

into Poland of the Code Napoleon. Concerning- the
action of this reform, one of the best historians of
Polish economy remarks : —

44 The widest breach in the civil rigime, and above
all in the property system as it existed in Poland,
was made by the Code Napoleon, which was intro-
duced into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw in 1808. It
implanted the juridical forms of the modern bourgeois
system in the economy of a naturally feudal system of
exploitation. Incapable by itself of transforming the
means of production, it nevertheless dealt the most
damaging blows to the old property system, and
hastened its fall. The abolition of the special system
affecting leased property wrested landed property from
its immobilized condition and drew it into the current
of exchange." ■

In 1809 and 18 12 the Government of the Grand
Duchy of Warsaw invited foreign manufacturers, experts,
and artisans to settle in Poland. They were granted
various privileges, for example, exemption from military
service, taxes on landed property, customs duties, etc.

In its 44 kingdom of Poland " the Russian Govern-
ment retained this policy, and between 18 16 and 1824
it issued a series of Imperial ukases, whose object was
to favour industry and to attract foreign capital and
capitalists.

As a result the general character of economic and
social life underwent a radical change. But the origins
of this new state of affairs must be traced back to
the brief existence of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw
and the triumph of the middle classes, when 44 the
barriers which divided them from the nobility were
broken," and when they were enabled to seize upon
all the means of conquering the productive forces of the
country. So that it was said that *' the embourgeoisr-
ment of the political life of Poland was in great measure
the result of French influence." 2

• Rosa Luxembourg, Industrial Evolution of Poland.

• L. Janowicz, A Sketch of the Evolution of Industry in the Kingdom
of Poland (Warsaw, 1907).

CHAPTER IV

I. The Crimean War — Its origins. II. Causes of defeat — The con-
trast between the old Russia and the new Europe. III. The
Eastern question — The Slav problem and the Europeanization of
Russia.

I

From i 8 1 2 to 1 8 1 4, Russia, in alliance with England,
was fighting France. Forty years later the two Western
States were allied against the Russian Empire.

The composition of this alliance enabled the enemy,
in 1854, to represent the conflict as that of the West
against the East, Europe against Asia.

On the other hand, the immediate cause of the
Crimean War, or rather its immediate pretext, was
the possession of the keys of the church of Bethlehem;
the Orthodox monks and their Catholic competitors
disputed the right of possession. So that the struggle
seemed thus to be between Orthodoxy and Catholicism.

In reality it was much more material and concrete.
Once again it proceeded from the economic relations
existing between Russia and Great Britain.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, as we
have seen, these relations were very close, and we may
even say that Russia and Great Britain could not do
without one another. Toward the middle of the century
the situation underwent a change. The commercial
ties between the two countries suffered a general
relaxation, due at first to the condition of the world-
market, and then to the economic policy of Russia.

England obtained from Russia chiefly raw materials
and cereals. But in the second quarter of the century

100 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

the European market offered corn at moderate prices
and in fair abundance. England was therefore enabled
in great measure to dispense with the importation of
Russian corn. As for Russia, her industry, having
experienced the elimination of competition during the
short period of the Continental Blockade, was beginning
to manifest her predilection for an increasingly definite
protectionism. English merchandise gradually dis-
appeared from the Russian market, and about 1830-
35 the British Press was complaining that while
British trade with other foreign States was more or
less rapidly increasing, the trade with Russia remained
at the same level, or was decreasing. The English
especially complained that Russia was seizing upon the
Trans -Caucasian regions and the shores of the Black
Sea — Georgia too, and Bessarabia ; and she was
meditating the acquisition of Asia Minor, the Bosphorus,
and the Dardanelles ; that is, the highway by which
British trade penetrated the East.

Moreover, Nicolas I was endeavouring to establish
an absolute political hegemony over Europe, its
character being reactionary.

There was therefore more than one pretext available
for an Anglo-Russian conflict.

If France decided to take part in this conflict, it
was, according to modern historians, " not because of
her hostility towards Russia, but because of her friend-
ship for England." The Russian author who thus
defines the motive which France is supposed to have
obeyed bases his opinion on arguments of a material
order. He observes that at this period France was
not a competitor of England, but rather a collabo-
rator ; for nearly half the total trade of England
was carried in French vessels.1 "And, similarly, the
East, with its ports and its trade routes, was acquiring
a particular interest for the French Government. About
the same moment de Lesseps was appealing for French
capital to construct the Suez canal, and Napoleon III
* M. Pokrovsky, Russian History, vol. v. p. 34 (Moscow, 1914).

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 101

recalled the traditional protectorate exercised by the
French sovereigns over the Catholic inhabitants of
Turkey. As we know, it was the intervention of
France in the affairs of Palestine which provoked
an explicit conflict between the new Emperor of
France and Nicolas I. The keys of the temple
of Bethlehem opened the temple of the God of War,
which had been closed for forty years."

II

The God of War, so favourable to Russia during
the first half of the nineteenth century, deserted her in
1854; Russia was defeated.

It may at first sight appear astonishing that so great
a State should have been forced to declare herself
vanquished, and to place herself at the mercy of her
enemies, because of a defeat suffered at Sebastopol ;
that is, at one remote point of her immense territory.
There are qualified Russian writers who assert that
Russia could and should have continued the Crimean
War, and that she would have had a good chance of
emerging victoriously. Here, for instance, is the
opinion of the celebrated Russian historian, S. Soioviev,
as recorded in his posthumous notes : —

" Peace was concluded after the fall of Sebastopol,
while Sebastopol was playing the same role as Moscow
in 18 1 2. At this very moment Russia should have
declared that the war was not finished, but was only
beginning, in order to compel the Allies to renounce
it. . . . Foreign affairs were by no means in so
desperate a condition that an energetic sovereign could
not have emerged from the struggle retaining his
dignity and some essential advantages. In the interior
of the country there was no exhaustion, no extreme
distress. The new sovereign, whom all wished to love,
because he was new, could have raised enormous forces
by appealing to the love and patriotism of the people.
The war was difficult for the Allies ; they ardently
desired its termination. Before a Russian sovereign

102 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

who spoke firmly, asserting his intention to fight until
the conclusion of an honourable peace, they would have
drawn back."

General Kuropatkin shares this opinion; he con-
siders that " finding inspiration in the example of
Peter I and Alexander I, we should have continued
the war, in order to ' drive the enemy into the
sea.' "

But both writers — the scholar and the professional
soldier — have themselves represented the condition of
affairs in Russia at the end of the Crimean War under
such an aspect that the impossibility of continuing the
war is obvious to those who are capable of objective
judgment. Soloviev states that Alexander II, at the
moment of his accession, had neither the breadth of
view, nor the courage, nor the initiative, nor the energy
necessary for the continuation of the struggle, and that
among those who surrounded him " there was not a
single man endowed with intellectual and moral power,"
" not a single man capable of lighting the darkness."
As for General Kuropatkin, he draws the following
picture of Russia before and during the war : —

" The movement of liberation which originated in
Russia after the Napoleonic wars, which penetrated
even the ranks of the army, was followed (under
Nicolas I), by a powerful bureaucratic pressure, which
weighed heavily on all manifestations of public activity
and on all ranks and classes of society, including the
military. It was as though all Russia had donned
the same uniform, close -buttoned from top to bottom,
and was standing motionless. Russia and her army
could only say : ' I obey you,' ' You are right,' and
' All goes well.' The soldiers were cruelly treated.
Their food was bad. Thefts of all kinds were habitual
phenomena in the army. The command of regiments
was given to landed proprietors who had squandered
their fortunes in order that they might make th-
again. The Imperial Guard enjoyed oppre
privileges. Every act of spontaneous initiative was

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 103

punished by law. The Press was timid and silent.
Any discussion in a military journal, even in respect
of the soldier's clothing, was often regarded as the
sign of a subversive mind. The army, therefore, in spite
of its great numbers, was backward in the matter of
intellectual force. And in the matter of material
strength we were equally backward, compared with
the European armies." *

General Kuropatkin, as we see, attributes the sorry
condition of the Russian Army on the outbreak of the
Crimean War to the general regime of reaction then
prevailing. So it was not the Russian Army which'
was conquered at Sebastopol by the Allied troops, but
rather, and especially, the social and political system
of the old autocratic Russia. A serf -owning country
could not hold out against more civilized States.

It is a curious fact that this very backwardness,
which was responsible for Russia's weakness, and which
condemned her to defeat, was represented, by the
" patriots " of various shades of opinion, as giving
Russia an advantage over Europe. Such was the
opinion not only of the official chauvinists, with their
insincere optimism, but even of the sincere and honest
patriots of the Slavophile camp. The harangues
in prose and verse in which they contrast " Holy
Russia " with " pagan Europe " read very strangely
to-day.

"What are you counting, on?" — so Mey, one of
the patriotic poets of 1855, addressed the enemy. " On
the courage of your troops? But every Russian soldier
is not merely brave in battle, he is intrepidly calm.
For everywhere, from the banks of the Neva to
Sebastopol, he stands erect to defend Russia and
religion. He does not stand for a chimera of the
Press, nor for the vanities of representative chambers."

Another Slavophile poet, A. Khomiakov, proclaims
in a poem written in 1854 that "God has bestowed
His love upon Russia, and has given her a fatal might
* Kuropatkin, Memoirs.

104 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

thai she may destroy the malevolence of blind,
unreasoning, and barbarous (sic) forces."

Is this aberration or hypocrisy, or an unconscious
attempt to justify the blemishes of Russia by her
supreme predestination?

However this may be, in the same poem the poet
does not hesitate to tell his country the following
truths : —

Remember that to be the instrument

Of God is difficult for earthly creatures ;

His judgment of His servants is severe ;

And thou, alas ! dost bear the burden of

So many dreadful crimes. For in thy courts

Reigns black injustice ; thou dost bear the brand

Worn by the yoke of slavery ; thou art full

Of impious flatteries and pestiferous lies,

And all abominations.

Khomiakov himself realized that in truth his country
" was unworthy of the divine election," but he never-
theless believed that she was elected, and that " she
would smite her enemies with the sword of God."

This miracle did not come to pass. The defeat
of Russia at Sebastopol, so insignificant from a military
point of view, had an enormous political and moral
effect, because it opened the eyes of all more or less
discerning and conscientious Russians to all the evils
from which their country was suffering. The immediate
result of this defeat was the " period of the great
reforms," followed by the movement known by the
name of Nihilism. The military downfall of Russia
made an end of the legend of Russian supremacy which
had been prevalent abroad ; and within Russia it shook
the principle of autocratic government. The " nega-
tion " of the old ideas of authority, and of all those
prejudices on which the old life was based, was a
logical result of this catastrophe. This is why " nega-
tion " formed the basis of Nihilism.

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 105

III

The antithesis established by the patriots between
" Holy Russia " and " pagan Europe " at the time of
the Crimean War was to a certain extent justified by
the presence of Turkey in the coalition formed against
the Empire of the Tsar, which enabled the Russian
Government to pose as the defender of brother Slavs
and Christians against the M infidel," " heathen "
Mahomedans.

It is true that the situation of the Christian and
Slav peoples in the Balkans was at this time
unendurable. But the Government of Nicolas I, a
reactionary and an oppressor of his own people,
had no moral right to arrogate to itself the rdte of
defender, since its whole previous conduct had been in
absolute contradiction to the mission which it claimed
to fulfil. Alexander I, after the Congress of Vienna,
had declared himself openly hostile to a rising of the
Balkanic peoples against the Turks. For example, in
1 82 1 (at the Congress of Lay bach), he severely
condemned the Greeks' desire for independence, regard-
ing it as a manifestation of the revolutionary spirit.

In order to confirm his opinion by action, he
dismissed Prince Ypsilanti from the corps of officers
of the Russian Army, because he had assumed the
command of the Greek insurgents ; and he dismissed
Count Capo d'l stria, a Greek citizen and Minister of
Foreign Affairs in Russia, who fomented the revolt of
his compatriots against the Turkish rule. The liberated
Greeks having elected Capo d'l stria President of their
Republic, the Russian Government attempted to induce
him to subserve its reactionary policy in Greece, thereby
provoking a protest on the part of the advanced parties
of that country and the assassination of Capo d'Istria
by two Republican patriots, the brothers Mavromikhalis.

Enlightened Russians did not approve of the obscure
and reactionary policy of their Government. The

106 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

famous poet Pushkin encouraged the Greek insurrection
in the following lines : —

Arise, O Greece, arise !

Not in vain is thy striving,

Not in vain docs war shake Olympus,

Pindus, and the crags of Thermopylae.

Beneath the secular shadow of their peaks

Was born the liberty of ancient time,

The sacred marbles of Athens,

The tombs of Theseus and Pericles.

Land of heroes and of slaves,

Shatter the chains of slavery,

Singing the fiery songs

Of Tyrtaeus, Byron, and Rigas !

Austria encouraged the reactionary interference of
the Russian Government in the domestic affairs of
Greece, being well aware that it would thereby suffer
the loss of Greek sympathies ; and Alexander's
opposition to the movement of liberation was due to
the counsels of Metternich.

France and England, on the other hand, declared
themselves in favour of the establishment of a consti-
tutional regime in Greece ; but they were guilty of
another mistake in supporting the candidature of Prince
Otto of Bavaria to the Greek throne, thereby permit-
ting German influence to get its first roots into the
Greek soil.

Half a century later another example occurred of
the deviation impressed by internal reaction on the
external policy of the Empire : the Government
attempted to enforce the complete submission of
Bulgaria, whom the war of 1877-78 had rendered
independent, to its tutelage. It merely succeeded in
exciting an anti-Russian movement which carried
Stambouloff into power, and allowed Germany and
Austria to implant their influence in the country.

We find the same blunder exemplified in the
present war. A considerable portion of the Russian
(Ruthenian) and Polish population of Bukbvina and

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 107

Galicia, dissatisfied under the Austrian domination,
gladly welcomed the Russians when they occupied the
two provinces. But the civil officials who followed
the armies immediately began their work of reaction
and oppression, irritating the indigenous population by
the persecutions of their police.

It is true that the Prussians too used to treat the
Poles abominably, and that the situation of the Slavs
in Austria and Hungary was extremely difficult ; but
Germans, Poles, Austrians, Czechs, Hungarians,
Ruthenians, and Serbs are divided among themselves,
politically and ethnically, while Russia, being akin to
the Slavs, might have been a true friend and protector,
had it not been for her bureaucrats.

It is now clear that the Slav problem is, for Russia,
bound up with the problem of her own progress, her
own Europeanization. Although fifty years ago Russia,
albeit herself but half-civilized and despotically
governed, drew to herself the Slavs of the Balkans,
then subjected to the terrible yoke of the Sultans
and leading an almost barbarous existence, to-day her
proteges have become independent, and have entered
upon a process of rapid civilization and European-
ization ; they have even, in some respects, outstripped
their sometime liberator, Russia. They possess highly
democratic Constitutions, Parliaments, an intense
political life, while in Russia the constitutional regime
is hardly born, and many vestiges of the old regime
remain. Consequently, the gaze of her sometime clients
is turning toward Western Europe, not to her. Austria
and Germany have contrived to profit by this change.
As for the Russian bureaucracy, it does not yet under-
stand.

In my Russia and the Great War I cited the opinion
of Baron Rosen, member of the Imperial Council, who
states that Russian influence has declined among the
Balkan Slavs, and that " the great Slav idea " is, for
Russia, " devoid of all real foundation."

" All undertakings inspired by this idea — as, for

108 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

example, the Slav Bank, the exhibition of Russian
products, the Russian libraries in Slav countries, etc. —
either remain in the condition of mere projects, or
drag themselves through a miserable existence. . . .
In the domain of material civilization Russia has no
need of the Slav world, or the Slav world of Russia.
In the Slav States of the Balkans our industry, which
has at its disposal a vast home market defended by
extremely high protective tariffs, could only at a loss
compete with the Austro-German industries ; as for
the Slavs of the South, their commercial relations with
the Austro -Hungarian monarchy, their neighbour, will
always be more advantageous than their relations with
distant Russia. From the intellectual standpoint the
Slavs of the Balkans (and still more those of Austria),
despite a somewhat factitious Germanophobia, evidently
prefer — and this is very natural — to tap directly and
at first hand the Western sources, and principally those
of Germany."

Baron Rosen regards this situation as the normal
one. He does not seem to see that a " Europeanized "
Russia could group around her her brothers by race,
forming a veritable federation of Russo-Slavic civiliza-
tions. This simple idea does not occur to him, and
he advises his Government to abandon the Balkans
to Austro-German Imperialism, and, having bid the
West adieu, to turn again toward Asia.

" By abandoning to Germany supremacy in the
Western portion of Europe, and by dissociating herself
completely from all rivalries between European powers
based on interests purely European, Russia would assure
herself of the security of her Western frontier, and would
have her hands free for the accomplishment of her
mission in Asia."

For M. Rosen believes and proclaims that Russia
is " more especially an Asiatic Power."

CHAPTER V

I. The war with Europeanized Japan — The Asiatic question. II. The
German barrier isolating Russia from Europe — The Baltic Sea
and the Straits — The great European conflict, and its general
import from a Russian point of view.

I

The theory advanced by Baron Rosen, that is, that
Russia should seek her objective in Asia, was by the
end of the nineteenth century supported by other repre-
sentatives of the anclen regime. It also had the support
of the German Government, which was anxious to urge
Russia to enter upon adventures in the Far East, in order
that Germany and Austria might thereby enjoy full
liberty of manoeuvre in Europe, the Balkans, and Asia
Minor. It is undeniable that Russia's advance towards
the frontier of Korea and Port Arthur was encouraged
by German diplomacy.

But, curiously enough, in the Far East Russia en-
countered Europe I Not only because Europe, in the
shape of the gold of old England, stood behind Japan,
but also because Russia came into conflict with the
civilization of Europe, which, since the revolution of
1868, had entirely transformed the economic and
political life of Japan, and had given birth to new forms
of capitalist production, new industrial methods, and
novel means of warfare.

It should be remarked that the revolution in Japan,
and the beginning of the Europeanization of the
country, coincided with the " period of great reforms " in
Russia. But Japan had more sense of progress. Having
undertaken to modernize the country, the Japanese

109

110 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

applied themselves to the task without intermission,
with the assistance of all the energies of the nation,
which were left free to develop themselves and to mani-
fest themselves in Parliament, the Press, the schools,
the industries of the country, etc. The Russian Govern-
ment, on the other hand, after some concessions granted
to the people in the time of Alexander II, halted
midway, and then began to draw back, and to restore
the ancien regime in all its most lamentable forms.
The energies of Japan, exploited according to European
conceptions, became relatively greater, or rather more
deeply rooted and readier for action, than the still un-
formed and sluggish energies of the vast Russian
Empire. And Russia was beaten by her puny adver-
sary, and with unexpected ease. In reality it was
once again the West which triumphed over Russia in
1905.

I shall not speak here, having done so elsewhere,
of the results of this unhappy war with Japan as regards
the internal life of Russia. I will merely observe
that then was finally determined the general position of
Russia between the East and the West, between Europe
and Asia. The reader will have heard the famous
query" : "Is Russia the most Western of all the Asiatic
States or the most Eastern of all the European States? "
The Manchurian War gave the best possible answer
to this question by suppressing it. The war demon-
strated, in effect, firstly, that the terms Eastern, Western,
Europe, and Asia are merely relative and retrospective,
the remotest of the States of the Far East having
become European, and having entered the Concert of
the European Powers. On the other hand, it imposed,
on Russia's action in Asia, the same law which con-
ditioned her action in Europe. Forced to become
European if she did not wish to remain in the rear
of her brothers by race, Russia was also obliged to
become European in order to maintain her rank among
the Asiatic States which were becoming modernized —
such as China and Persia.

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 111

II

iThis process of evolution is all the more necessary
to Russia in that the unhappy result of her adventure
in the Far East has thrown her back upon Europe.
But Germany, during the war, seized the opportunity
of carrying out her Pangermanist schemes in Western
Europe, Turkey, and Asia Minor. These schemes,
dangerous to all European States, were especially a
danger to Russia, for they threatened the very basis of
her future development. She had laid hands, or was
preparing to lay hands, on the Baltic Sea, the
Dardanelles, and the Bosphorus.

The construction of a powerful Navy and the cutting
of the Kiel Canal had made Germany the absolute
mistress of the Baltic Sea, from which the naval forces
of Russia had disappeared in 1905. Thus the work of
Peter the Great, a maritime highway communicating
with Europe, was, if not destroyed, at least entirely at
the mercy of the German Empire, which could at any
moment close it with its submarines and ironclads.

To measure only the economic significance of the
mastery obtained by Germany, it is enough to reflect
that about 30 per cent, of all Russia's exports
(£49,080,000 out of a total of £162,160,000 in 191 3)
travels by the Baltic Sea. As for the political and
intellectual value of Russia's connection with Europe
by way of the Baltic, it is incalculable.

But the Dardanelles route is no less necessary to
Russia ; it is perhaps even more necessary. From the
ports of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov a third part
of the total exportation of Russia leaves the country ;
in 191 3 its value was £51,440,000. Cereals in
particular go by way of the Dardanelles; in 19 13,
of 10,670,000 tons exported, 7,900,000 tons, or more
than 80 per cent., went by this route, which is that
followed more particularly by the grain destined for
Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland, and Eng-
land. Of the corn imported in 191 3 by the following

112 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

countries, the amounts furnished by Russia were :
881,000 tons to Italy, the total imports being 1,81 1,000
tons; to Holland, 1,715,000 tons out of 3,883,000;
while 40 per cent, of the corn consumed by Switzerland
was of Russian origin.1 The Dardanelles route is thus
of prime importance to Russia and to the countries of
Europe. It is also of prime importance to the industrial
future of Russia, for it forms the outlet by which she
exports the products of the mining regions, coal-fields,
and petroleum-fields of the South, and imports an ever-
increasing quantity of European merchandise.

The Dardanelles, while in the exclusive possession
of Turkey, were open to Russia, Turkey by herself
not being strong enough to dare to close them. But of
late years German Imperialism has installed itself in
Constantinople, there to commence the execution of
its gigantic scheme of the Bagdad Railway. Again,
but this time on the South, a Germanic barrier was to
divide Russia from the West, while the German Army
and Navy hemmed her in on the West.

That one of the aims of Germany in installing her-
self on the Bosphorus was to separate Russia from
Europe has long been admitted by the Pangermanists
themselves.

" Turkey opposes an obstacle to the penetration of
the Mediterranean by the mighty Eurasian nation —
Russia," wrote Colonel Rogalla von Bieberstein in a
military review (1902). "This obstacle resides rather
in the fortified works on the Bosphorus and the
Dardanelles than in the international treaties concerning
these straits. Germany also is greatly interested in the
maintenance of this barrier. It is greatly to the interest
of Germany that this barrier should be maintained,
and that Russia should not penetrate the Mediter-
ranean." 2

* I cite these figures from L Europe] devant Constantinople, by Max
Hoschiller ^I'iiris, 1916), p. 101.

1 Cited from M. Andre Cheradame's work on La Question d'Orient.
La Macidotne. Le chemiu defer de Bagdad (Paris, 1903), p. 253.

RUSSIA IN ARMS AND EUROPE 113

German Imperialism had two reasons for wishing
to keep Russia apart from Europe.

The first reason is expounded as follows by a German
military writer, Colonel Hildebrandt : —

" The advantages acquired by Germany by the con-
clusion of the treaty relating to the Bagdad Railway
seriously diminish the influence of Russia in Asia Minor ;
and the activities of Russia are once more turning
toward Central Asia, which is, for that matter, her true
sphere." l

Russia thrown back upon Central Asia, the German
domination would spread without hindrance through the
Balkans, Turkey, and Asia Minor.

Finally, separated from Europe, Russia would inevit-
ably have become a German colony, an object of
exploitation for the subjects of the Kaiser.

This colossal and permanent blockade would have
arrested the economic development of Russia, award-
ing the final supremacy to the Germanophile reaction
in the Russian Government.

It is therefore the fact that in its present resistance
to German Imperialism the Russian people is fighting,
not merely for the defence of its territory, but for its
whole future, for liberty of communion in the life of
the West.

Happily it has, for its companions in arms, the most
advanced of the Western Powers. France, Belgium,
England, Italy, and Serbia (which is the most civi-
lized of the Slav countries of the Balkans), form, with
Russia, a single resistant mass to oppose the scheme
of subjection attempted by Germany and her allies,
Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria.

I will not repeat here what I said in my book on
Russia and the Great War concerning the effect of
the present war upon Russian life. I will only call
the reader's attention to those facts which best exhibit
this effect.

The present war with Germany presents this analogy
* Cheradame, op. cit. p. 255.
8

114 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

with the war of 1 8 1 2 — it has a national character. All
the democrats in Russia recognize in this war the cause
of liberty, external and internal. On the other hand,
for the reactionaries, the ante-bellum Germanophiles,
to fight against the junkers is the worst of calamities.
For a long time they had maintained close connections
with their political co-religionists in Prussia, and were
visibly full of complaisance toward them. Kaiserism
contrived to profit by this weakness of the Russian
bureaucracy and autocracy, which became its instru-
ments ; the German advance upon Bagdad, the Austrian
penetration of the Balkans, the annexation of Bosnia-
Herzegovina, were regarded with complete favour by
the friendly reactionaries of Russia, who subordinated
the international interests of the Empire to their own
domestic interests. They regret the rupture with
Kaiserism, which is one of the principal props of
the present monarchical regime, and the union of
their country with republican France and the consti-
tutional States of Great Britain, Italy, and Belgium.
The champions of progress are of a precisely opposite
opinion, seeing in the present fraternity of Russia and
the Western nations a force tending to democratize and
Europeanize their country. This is why they believe
that their country will achieve its own liberty when it
reaches the end of the road leading to victory over
the external oppressor.

PART THE THIRD

THE EUROPEAN IZATION OF THE
STATE

CHAPTER I

I. A European State in ancient Russia : the Free City of Novgorod.
II. The birth of the absolute monarchy and its conflict with
feudalism — Western influences in Russian feudalism.

I

The historians of the old national school love to
attribute an external cause to the vices of the super-
annuated political system which has survived in Russia.
For some, the Tartar yoke vitiated the normal develop-
ment of the nation. Others accuse the contagion of
the West of having corrupted the purity of Russian
morals and the patriarchal relations existing between
the people and its sovereigns. Both look to the remote
past for the " true " character and the " national "
political spirit cited so often and so readily in the
histories of the " urban republics " of Novgorod and
Pskov, which they claim to be of purely autochthonous
origin.

Impartial criticism has destroyed this legend, and
has proved that the republican institutions of the Free
Cities of Novgorod and Pskov owe their birth and
their development to a direct external influence — to their
economic relations with the Free Towns of Europe.

What was the political constitution of Novgorod?
The city was governed by a vetche, that is, by a body
composed of all the citizens. The vetche elected
tysiatskie (from the word tysiatsha, meaning thousand)
and the posadnik, that is, the president of the republic.
The tysiatskie with the posadnik formed a council which
directed affairs. Mutatis mutandis, this is the same
urban oligarchy which we find in all the trading cities

11T

118 RUSSIA. AND EUROPE

of the Middle Ages, on the shores of the Adriatic (in
Venice) and the Mediterranean (in Genoa), as on the
shores of the North Sea (in Flanders, Holland, and
Germany).

But Novgorod traded with the Free Towns of
Germany. As early as the twelfth century it possessed
" markets of Gothland and Germany," founded by
foreign merchants from Gothland and Liibeck. In the
thirteenth century it entered into relations with the
Hanseatic League ; and it was precisely at this period
that the burghers freed themselves from the domination
of princes and set up elective authorities. The moment
when the foreign trade of Novgorod attained the highest
pitch of prosperity coincided with the moment when its
republican institutions were at their apogee.

The oligarchical form of the Government was
borrowed by the Russian cities from the foreign urban
republics with which they were connected by a current
of exchanges.

" The success of the foreign trade, which had become
the principal focus of urban life," says Klutshevsky,
" resulted in the creation of certain great houses, which
placed themselves at the head of affairs, and subse-
quently assumed the direction of the civil administration.
This aristocracy governed only de facto, and without
the establishment of the democratic forms of the Novgo-
rodian constitution."

II

This constitution was forcibly suppressed by the
Muscovite Tsars in the fifteenth century. Then com-
menced the autocratic Tsarist rtgime which has lasted
until to-day.

As I have already stated in my Modern Russia, the
Muscovite monarchy, in order to become a real auto-
cracy, had to stifle not only the republican institutions
of the burghers of the Free Cities of the North-West,
but also the feudal and separatist tendencies of other
princes, princelets, boyars, etc.

THE EUROPE ANIZATION OF THE STATE 119

Recent historical researches have demonstrated that
there is an analogy between feudal Europe and the
Russia of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth
centuries. There are similarities even in the terms
expressing the relations of sovereignty and law between
the suzerains and vassals of mediaeval Europe and their
Russian colleagues.

One question presents itself : Do these resemblances
arise merely from a coincidence of evolution, or from
the more or less direct influence of the West?

It seems to me that this influence cannot be disputed.
Still, it cannot positively be observed except in the
western provinces, neighbouring on Lithuania and
Poland. Poland, as we know, retained, until the loss
of her independence, a very active and profoundly rooted
feudal system. The frontier regions of Great Russia
and the Ukraine were affected by their contact with
Poland and Polish Lithuania, and it was their local
nobility which opposed the most obstinate resistance
to the absolute power which came into being in Moscow.
To Lithuania and Poland fled those Muscovite boyars
who were in conflict with the princes and tsars ; for
instance, Andrei Kurbsky in the reign of Ivan the
Terrible.

The influence of the West was also very perceptible
in Galician Russia, where the relations between prince
and boyar, in the thirteenth and fourteenth century,
were precisely similar to the relations between the
European suzerains and their feudatories. The Galician
princes even made use of seals of Western pattern, and
the language of their ukases was Latin. At one moment
they endeavoured to make themselves princes of all
the Russias. If they had succeeded, events might have
followed quite a different course. But Asia intervened,
in the invasions of the nomads and the Tartar yoke,
which divided South-Western Russia from North-
Eastern Russia, and forced it into other paths.

The Government of the Russian State retained the
imprint of the Tartar yoke. During a long period

120 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

the Russian principalities remained under the Asiatic
domination, and the Prince of Moscow, although High
Prince of Russia, was the principal vassal of the Tartar
Khan, and was subject to his tutelage. It was very
natural that his Government should be modelled on
the despotism of Asia. Foreigners who visited Russia
in the sixteenth century — that is, at the time of the
formation of the Muscovite autocracy — were amazed by
what they saw, and wondered whether they were in
Europe or Asia. M The Russian State greatly resembles
the Turkish, which the Russians endeavour to imitate,"
said the Englishman John Fletcher (who visited Moscow
in 1588) in his work On the Russian Commonwealth.
" Their Government is purely tyrannical ; all its actions
serve the profit and the advantage of the Tsar ex-
clusively, and this in the most open and most barbarous
fashion." ■ The power of the central authority, and
the foundation of the autocracy, were alike favoured
by the necessities of the struggle against external
enemies : firstly against the Asiatic hordes, and then
against Russia's Western neighbours. With the Asiatics
Russia was at war until the end of the sixteenth century,
and her triumph over the Tartars coincided with that
of the Tsars over the feudal system. The historian
Klutshevsky is right in asserting that the victory of
Russia over the Mongols was the victory of Europe
over Asia. But Georg Plekhanov states, with equal
reason, that " Europe conquered the Asiatics only be-
cause she herself had become Asia."2 M. Plekhanov
develops this idea in a few remarkable pages of his

* 1 may remark in passing that the first edition of Fletcher's work,
published in England at the end of the sixteenth century, was burned
by order of the English Government, which was anxious to avoid
offending the Tsar by permitting the expression of certain disagree-
able truths. In Russia the first edition of this book was published
in 1848, in a historical review. The number in which it appeared
was burned, and the editor had anything but an agreeable time, what
with the censorship, the police, and the gendarmerie.

• G. Plekhanov, History of the Social Idea in Russia, vol. i. p. 98
(Moscow, 1914).

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 121

masterly History of the Social Idea in Russia, the
two volumes of which have lately appeared. In
the formation of the State in Russia and in Europe
M. Plekhanov perceives these essential differences : —

" In Russia, as well as in Europe, the central authority
was able to overcome the centrifugal aspirations of
the feudal seigneurs. But in France, for example,
the kings, while imposing their authority on the nobility,
did not deprive the latter of the right of possessing
landed property, and did not subject them to obligatory
service. Or, as M. d'Avenel remarks, ' privilege was
not the recompense for service rendered, but the right
of birth.' In Russia it was quite otherwise. There
property in land became a State fund, into which the
Tsars dipped when they wished to repay the services
of a noble. And what the nobles did for the peasants,
in putting lands at their disposal in exchange for com-
pulsory labour, the Tsars did for the nobles, who were
thus, in a manner of speaking, merely superior serfs."
This condition of affairs was typical of ancient Chaldea,
ancient Egypt, and Persia, and in general of all the
great despotic States of Asia. M. Plekhanov is right
in comparing Muscovite Russia with these States, and
in perceiving the elements of Asiatic despotism in the
evolution of the Russia of this period.

But Russia did not remain in the stage of political
development which these States retained until their final
dissolution. " Russian evolution offers the peculiarity —
and this time it is in favour of progress — of a great
resemblance to Asia followed by a very slow but irre-
sistible turning toward the European West, while the
Asiatic States, properly so called, do not present us
with examples of the tendency toward Europeaniza-
tion until after the middle of the nineteenth century,
Japan being the foremost." '

1 G. Plekhanov, op. cit.

CHAPTER II

I. Military power and the reform of the State administration under
Peter I — Swedish influences. II. The palace revolutions of the
eighteenth century and the influence of Europe. III. German
domination, and the anti-Germanic movement under Anna — The
participation of France and England in the coup d'etat of 1741 —
A Duke of Holstein the Russian Tsar — His Prussophilia. IV. The
conspiracy of 1801 and British diplomacy.

I

At one particular and very important point the forma-
tion of the Russian State was unlike that of the
European States. This point was the organization of
the military forces.

In the Western monarchies, thanks to the rapid
increase of pecuniary wealth, the kings — for example,
in France — were enabled to take into their service
mercenary troops, and, consequently, were no longer
dependent on the seigneurial militia. The replacement
of the militia by paid troops forced the kings to depend
on the Third Estate, the source whence they derived
the necessary money.

In Russia, on the other hand, the urban bourgeoisie,
even in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was
too weak to be of material help to the Tsars, and the
military needs were too great to be filled by mercenary
troops. The military organism had to be constituted
otherwise than in Europe.

Until the year 1705 the Russian Army consi
of a seigneurial cavalry — that is, a mounted militia, a
few regiments of paid infantry and cavalry. The war
with Sweden forced Peter's Government to draw with-
in

THE EUROPE ANIZATION OF THE STATE 123

out delay upon other sources. It adopted the principle
of compulsory recruiting, which was applied, for the
first time, in 1705, when the Government ordered the
population to provide it with recruits at the rate of
one recruit for every twenty peasant (Ivors. }

Towards the end of the reign of Peter I the Russian
Army already numbered 200,000 men of the regular
troops and 100,000 Cossacks and other irregulars. The
upkeep of these numerous effectives was costly —
5,000,000 roubles, to which must be added \\ million
for the maintenance of the fleet, so that the total
military expenditure on land and sea forces amounted
to 6j millions, which would be equivalent, in present
values, to from 52 to 58 millions.

The suppression of the militia and the creation of
a standing army demanded a new administration ; the
old administration consisted of a few very rudimentary
central bodies known as prikazy, which were directed
by boyars who had received from the Tsar a prikaz
— that is to say, an order of attendance. The local
administration was confided to the vo'ievody (from the
words voin, soldier, and vodit, to lead), whose name
indicates their origin and their function ; they were
civil and military administrators in one. The voievady
received no fixed salary from the State, and had to
" maintain themselves (according to the official phrase)
at the expense of the population."

This system of administration, based on the prin-
ciple of the local militia, was not adapted to the new
organization, and Peter wished to replace it in order
to centralize the military machine, and above all its
revenues .

As Sweden, his enemy, appeared to him the most
powerful of States, and owed, or so he believed, her
strength to her good administration, he sent thither
a foreigner (Tick) in order that he might discover,
buy, or at need steal, information as to the administra-

• Dvor means a court or yard, and signifies a family or an economic
peasant unity.

124 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

tive institutions of Sweden. Moreover, he took into
his service the Silesian Baron Luberas, of whom I
have already made mention, and who had the reputation
of a very extensive knowledge of Swedish affairs.

What is more, he was able to initiate himself directly
into Swedish methods by watching them at work in
the Baltic provinces, which he had conquered. One
of his ukazes ordered the adoption of these methods
in certain administrative services.

He borrowed also from other Western States. After
his first journey to Holland he created the ratushi and
bourmistry, in imitation of what he had seen there. In
1 7 14 he wrote to his " projector " — that is, the official
who elaborated his schemes of reform, Soltykov by
name — that he was to send him " the laws which he
had extracted from the English and other European
laws, those of the republics excepted." ! Among the
" laws " which Soltykov sent him was a proposal
relating to entail, the idea of which was borrowed
from England, and which was introduced into Russia
under the modified form of the inalienability and
indivisibility of seigneurial properties.

But as a source of inspiration the other States occu-
pied only a secondary place ; Sweden was the model
to be copied and faithfully reproduced. In the eyes
of the Russian Government she not only appeared
worthy of becoming an object of emulation on account
of the excellency of her military resources, but she
was also the only country in Europe in which the
absolute monarchy had finally defeated the feudal
system, which elsewhere was still perceptible. More-
over, the Swedish administration had the reputation
of being the best of its period. For this very reason
its adaptation to Russia was a highly audacious under-
taking— perhaps too audacious.

* This dislike of republicanism was manifested by an earlier
monarch, Ivan the Terrible, who, despite .all his symptoms of Anglo-
philia, interrupted commercial relations with Kngland because " the
English, according to his own expression, had committed a very evil
deed : they had put their king, Charles, to death."

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 125

Peter I borrowed from Sweden all the external forms
of public authority, and created kollegii (colleges) to
replace the old prikazy ; and the Senate, which con-
sisted originally of the first presidents of the kollegii ;
the gubernatory (governors) administering each one
of the eight gubernii into which Russia was divided,
and which were subdivided into provintsii (provinces)
and distrikiy (districts).

His ukases more than once indicate that " the in-
structions and regulations " according to which the
new administration was to function were to be drawn
up ** in the Swedish fashion," or " with certain changes."

While he was replacing the old governmental machine,
Peter believed it necessary to replace the aristocratic
hierarchy by a bureaucratic hierarchy. In 1722 he
promulgated, in a ukase, the tabel o rangakh (table
of ranks) — that is, the scale of tshin (or grades), civil
and military, in which nearly all the names of the
bureaucratic posts are borrowed from the Latin or
German (kollejsky assessor, major, etc.).

Believing that one "cannot act according to the
books alone, for in these all circumstances are not
foreseen," Peter did not confine himself to collecting
foreign laws and statutes. In^jl^rmany, Bohemia^^and
Holland hergcruited jurists, "writers, andaHmmistrators.
Baron von Luberas alone engaged no less than 150
officials to enter the service of his Government.

Having created new administrative bodies, with new
denominations, having replaced the Russian names
by European names, Peter believed that he had
Europeanized the Muscovite State, whose capital,
baptized with a European name, he had removed,
geographically, towards the West. But he was deluded.

To his thinking, the Senate, constituted in 171 1,
should have seen to the general supervision and higher
direction of affairs of State ; but from 1 7 1 5 onwards
he was obliged to subject the Senate itself to the
supervision of a " General Reviser," whose duty it
was to attend the sessions of the Senate and to denounce

126 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

to the Tsar those of its members who were neglecting
their duty. Five years later another official was
appointed to see that in the Senate " all should be
done properly, and that there should be no babbling,
shouting, or other things." He had to note, by the
aid of an hour-glass, if the deliberations were suffi-
ciently prompt, and to determine their duration. A
year later, as he was not sufficient for his task, he
was replaced by an officer of the Guard, who had
the right to arrest senators who made use of language
unseemly or insulting towards their colleagues. At the
end of yet another year the Senate was finally
subordinated to a General- prokuror (Procurator-
General), in whose hands it became, from being the
highest body in the State, a mere tool.

The history of the Senate and the other institutions
created under Peter is deplorable. The senators and
members of the colleges " played at law as at cards,"
and " mined the fortress of justice " (this is Peter's
phrase), applying themselves continually to theft and
intrigue, and to quarrelling. Nearly all the high
officials disregarded the interests of the State, and
thought of nothing but their own. At one session of
the Senate, toward the end of his reign, Peter, when
the reports of their dishonesty were read to him, ordered
the immediate publication of a ukase according to which
any person who stole from the State even the price of
a rope should be hanged. His favourite, Yagujinsky,
General Procurator of the Senate, inquired : " Does
your Majesty wish to remain Emperor by himself, with-
out any subjects? We all steal ; only some steal
more and less discreetly than others."

The condition of the local administrations was no
better. The new gubernatory and landraty (from the
German landrath), in spite of their European names,
robbed the people and the Treasury as thoroughly as
did the Muscovite volevody. The generals and other
officers, travelling through the provinces, beat and
plundered the civil officials. The population, im-

THE EUROPBANIZATION OF THE STATE 127

poverished by wars, taxation, and rapine, fled into the
steppes or forests, and there formed bands of brigands.
Peter issued ukase after ukase, threatening and
chastising, without effecting anything. " The Peters-
burg official, the general, the provincial seigneur, threw
the ukases of the terrible Reformer out of the window,
and, like the forest brigand, recked little that there
were in the capital an absolute Senate and nine or
ten ' colleges,' constituted in the Swedish manner,
with systematically defined attributions. The imposing
exterior of legal order hid a general disorder." »

The attempt at Europeanization made in Peter's reign
failed, we must remember, because it coincided with
incessant warfare. Although war did enforce reforms,
it also gave them an accidental and provisional
character. The aim of the new institutions was fiscal
and military rather than social and political. Of the
nine colleges created in 1718, six were to deal with
finances and military and foreign affairs, one with
justice, and two with trade and industry. There was .f
no department of the higher administration to watch
over the interests of agriculture, which nevertheless
was the principal occupation of the people. The
rural population, the real foundation of the State, was
absolutely neglected by the Government, which sought
rather to increase the power of the nobles over the
moujiks .

The condition of the Russian peasants, which had
never ceased to grow worse since the end of the six-
teenth century, became more and more like that of
the agricultural serfs of the despotic States of the
East. Peter the Great did not attempt to improve
it ; on the contrary. Any real Europeanization of
Russia was therefore impossible, and administrative
reform was condemned to sterility.

1 A foreign observer — Fokkerodt — wrote a book upon his sojourn
in Russia, in the reign of Peter the Great, in which he stated that
the Tsar despaired of reclaiming his officials, and therefore determined
to exterminate them by the axe and the gallows, so that wholesale
death sentences might be expected. However, Peter died first.

V

128 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

II

The general disorder which harassed Peter I during
the Last years of his life persisted and increased under
his immediate successors.

Peter the Great, for the first time since the reign
of Ivan the Terrible, realized the s' ideal " of abso-
lute autocracy. In one of his laws he proclaimed
that " his Majesty was sovereign and autocratic. It
need reckon with no one in the world." He crushed
all the forces which might have opposed him ; old
boyar families were exterminated; the patriarchate
was replaced by an ecclesiastical Chancellery (Holy
Synod), subordinated to a civil official. The enforce-
ment of the " table of ranks " was intended to signify
that precedence depended not on birth, but exclu-
sively on the grade in the bureaucracy occupied by
the will of the Tsar or his mandatories. The trans-
formation of the Tsarstvo or Tsardom into an Empire
and the Tsar into an Emperor rendered the rupture
with the ancien regime still more evident. The Emperor
concentred in his person, fully and conjointly, the
powers of the State ; he became the supreme head
of the army, the head of the Church, the head of
the bureaucratic hierarchy.

In 1 613 the first Romanov was elected to the throne
by the representatives of the population. After this
the crown was transmitted by inheritance. Peter I,
rejecting the two principles of election and heredity,
published in 172 1 a ukase asserting the Emperor's
right to appoint his successor. The monarchical
power became not merely absolute, but arbitrary and
personal.

It must, however, be admitted that Peter I did not
employ his power exclusively for his own advantage,
but for the good of the State. We may say that he
often applied means and methods which were those
of Asiatic despotism to European and progressive ends.
His successors retained these methods, but to attain

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 129

different ends ; and they confounded their own affairs
completely with those of the collectivity.

An absolute monarch, in reality, is absolute only in
name, because he always is dependent on his entourage,
his favourites, or his guards. This truth is fully con-
firmed by the history of the Russian monarchy in the
eighteenth century. Directly the principle of auto-
cracy was officially proclaimed, the throne fell into the
hands of those who surrounded it.

On the night of the 28th of January, 17,25, while
Peter the Great lay dying, the officers of the regiments
of the Guard proclaimed as Empress his wife,
Catherine I, thus ruining the plans of the high officials,
who themselves wished to find Peter's successor. But
the bureaucracy and the aristocracy took their revenge
by persuading Catherine to form a sort of oligarchical
Government, which went by the name of the Superior
Secret Council (in 1726). At the instigation of the
Council, Catherine left the succession to her grand-
son, Peter, who in 1727, became the Tsar Peter II.
Three years later, in 1730, the Superior Secret Council,
with the aid of the Guard, raised to the throne the niece
of Peter I, Anna Ivanovna, Duchess of Courland, who,
before she died, chose for her heir Ivan Antonovitch
(aged two months), to be Known as Tsar Ivan VI in
1740. Anna Ivanovna entrusted her favourite, the
famous Biron, with the regency. But a fortnight after
the death of the Empress the mother of Ivan VI,
Anna Leopoldovna, Princess of Brunswick, with the
aid of the officers and men of the Preobrijensky regi-
ment, started a palace revolution, deported Biron, and
proclaimed herself Regent. A year later a conrpany
of the same regiment effected a fresh coup d'etat,
replaced Anna Leopoldovna and Ivan VI by the
daughter of Peter the Great — Yelisaveta Petrovna —
who reigned for twenty years, and in dying transferred
the power of the throne to her nephew, the Duke of
Holstein-Gottorp, Peter III. The reign of this prince
was very brief ; at the end of six months his wife

9

130 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Catherine, born a princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, deposed
him, with the assistance of the Guards, and assumed
the reins of power. She remained on the throne for
thirty-four years (from 1762 to 1796), leaving the
crown to Paul I, who was deposed and killed in 1801
by the officers of the Guard.

Europe was no stranger to all these events. Some-
times her inspiration may be very plainly distinguished
therein, and even her intervention ; of this there is
documentary proof.

In 1726 the French Ambassador in Petersburg,
Campredon, wrote to Versailles that the Russian aris-
tocracy wished to diminish the personal power of
Catherine I and to organize the Government in the
English manner. The same opinion was expressed in
1730 by the Secretary of the French Embassy, who
stated that in Moscow men were speaking, in the streets
and in private, of the British Constitution and the
rights of the English Parliament. During the crisis
of 1730 the nobles who elected Anna Ivanovna also
desired to limit the absolute power of the throne, and
were seeking in the West for the best system of govern-
ment. 44 The Constitutions of those countries glitter
in their eyes like jewels in a shop window, each more
beautiful than the next, and among them all they do
not know which to choose." The European Ambas-
sadors reported that there were, in 1730, partisans
among the nobles of the parliamentary monarchy as
in England, of the elective monarchy as in Poland,
and of the monarchy sharing its power with an aris-
tocratic oligarchy as in Sweden ; there were even
republicans.

The Swedish mode won the day, and the election of
Anna Ivanovna greatly resembled that of Ulrica
Eleanora, sister of Charles XII, who became Queen
of Sweden in 17 19. The Superior Secret Council,
on investing Anna with the power, forced her to sign
the " points " which limited her authority and sub-
jected her enactments to the approval and ratifica-

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 131

tion of the Council. Just as in Sweden, the middle
and the lesser nobles protested against the usurpation
of the high aristocracy; and Anna Ivanovna, relying
on this resistance, tore up the konditzii (conditions)
which had been imposed upon her. As for this
oligarchical Constitution, it was devised after the
Swedish model.

As to the material participation of foreigners in
the domestic affairs of Russia, politics, the palace
revolution of 1741 and the murder of Paul I in 1801
offer two extremely interesting examples of such
participation.

Ill

The military pronunciamento which solved the crisis
of 1741 lent a certain greatness to a mere palace
revolution. It was an expression of the national and
patriotic revolt against alien interference in the
government of the country.

As I have already remarked, Peter I had estab-
lished connections with the German world. The con-
quest of the Baltic provinces added a numerous German
population to the Empire. In 1731 — that is, only six
years after Peter's death — the Russian throne was occu-
pied by a Duchess of Courland, who was half a German.
Anna Ivanovna, coming to Petersburg, brought with
her to the capital her whole entourage, composed of
Courlanders and Livonians.

" Distrusting the Russians, Anna placed herself under
the protection of a crowd of foreigners whom she had
imported from Mitau and various corners of Germany.
The Germans spread over Russia as sweepings escape
from a torn sack ; they installed themselves in a crowd
at the Imperial Court, encompassed the throne, and
slipped into all the lucrative administrative posts. All
this motley crew was composed of the kleotoury
(creatures) of two powerful patrons : of a ' cur of a
Courlander ' who had but one talent — that of discover-
ing pedigree dogs (we are speaking of Biron), and

132 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

of a ' cur of a Livonian,' the auxiliary and eventually
the rival of Biron — Count Loewenwold, oberstallmeister ,
liar, incurable gambler, and peculator. In a dissi-
pated Court which had no other occupation than the
sumptuous f£tes organized by another Loewenwold, the
oberhofmarschall, even more maleficent than his brother,
the whole crew glutted themselves, gambling with the
money extracted from the people by means of the
bastinade. It was not without reason that the
maintenance of the Court cost, under Anna, five or
six times as much as under Peter I, although the
revenues of the State had not increased, but had rather
diminished."

The German bureaucrats, according to the same
author — Klutshevsky — " took up their positions round
the throne like hungry cats round a bowl of milk,
and subjected the Empire to the most abominable
methods of oppression : executions, deportations,
torture, and persecution." ,fThe Tartar invasion
repeated itself, only this time it came not from the
southern steppes, but from the Russian capital."

This picture resembles those drawn in their reports
by the foreign Ambassadors of Anna's reign ; they,
too, recorded the intolerable insolence of the favourites
— German favourites and bureaucrats — and predicted
a revolution.

An anti- Germanic movement was forming among the
officers and soldiers of the Guard and the middle
and lesser nobility. Having assisted Anna to rid her-
self of an oligarchy recruited from the Russian aris-
tocracy, the nobility saw, with irritation and amaze-
ment, the results of its fidelity to the new Empress
turned to the advantage of a German oligarchy. The
idea of a coup d'etat very naturally entered their
minds, and the conspirators decided to place
Yelisaveta on the throne. By one of the ironies
of history, and perhaps its justice also, the daughter
of Peter I, who in his lifetime was regarded ais a
" foreigner " and a " German," as an enemy of her

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 133

people, became the incarnation of national feeling in
revolt against the Germanic tyranny.

But, which is even more singular, the success of
this undertaking was assured by the support of
foreigners, French and Swedish. La Chetardie, the
French Ambassador, Lestocq, the French doctor, and
his Swedish colleague, Nolken, were the principal motive
forces of the plot against the bironovshtshina (the
rule of Biron), assisting it with their counsel and with
pecuniary support.

It may seem surprising that Sweden should have
served the ambitions of the daughter of Peter the
Great, the enemy who had deprived her of the Baltic!
littoral. The fact is that she hoped to obtain in recom-
pense for her assistance the restitution of a portion of
her former territories ; and Nolken even requested
Yelisaveta Pavlovna to engage herself, by secret treaty,
" always to defend the interests of Sweden." There
was then a rivalry between Sweden and England, the
ally of Austria, with whom neither Sweden nor France
was on good terms. Moreover, these two Powers feared
the economic and political domination in Europe of
England, and particularly in Russia. And the English
Government and English traders were buying favour
of Biron and other of the German "creatures."

However, the Germanic intrigue was not completely
defeated by the accession of Yelisaveta, who confined
herself to pensioning some of the most notorious of
the German bureaucrats. The mutiny of a regiment
of the Guard against its German officers was severely
repressed. It is true that in Yelisaveta's immediate
entourage and among her principal political advisers
there were no Germans, but in choosing as her successor
Charles Peter Ulric, Duke of Holstein, Yelisaveta was
not only leaving the crown to a German, but was
Germanizing the dynasty : the Russian House of
Romanov was from that moment replaced by the House
of Romanov-Holstein-Gottorp, which was German rather
than Russian. Becoming Tsar under the name of Piotr

134 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Fedorovitch (Peter III), the Duke of Holstein "could
not enlarge his narrow Holsteiner mind to the measure
of the vast Empire which destiny had bestowed upon
him ; on the contrary, once on the Russian throne, he
became more the Holsteiner than he had been at home."

He sought in all things to imitate Frederick II,
King of Prussia ; but such a model was too mighty
for his petty faculties, so that he only succeeded in
caricaturing it. He bore himself like a Prussian
soldier, publicly kissing the bust of Frederick and
kneeling before his portrait ; he wore the Prussian
uniform, which he imposed on the Russian Army ; he
himself mounted guard before the apartments of
Frederick's Ambassador in token of his respect for
his master ; he made the Russian Army the guardian
of the glory and the benefits acquired by the King of
Prussia. He ordered the Holy Synod to " purify the
Russian churches " — that is, to remove the ikons (those
of Jesus and the Virgin excepted) — and to impose on the
popes the costume and external appearance of Lutheran
pastors ; and he recruited Prussian soldiers and
corporals in order to form a private Holsteiner Guard.

In this way he contrived to get himself dethroned,
and, a week later, killed, by officers of the Russian
Guard.

This was a fresh check to the German penetration
of Russia. But the M' German party " was not
destroyed. It merely became more prudent, and was
thus able to increase and retain its privileges. In
the Imperial Court the names of the dignitaries even
in our days are German : as freiline (Jraiilein),
Kammerfrau, Kammer junker, Kammerherr, stallmeister ;
hofmeister, etc. In the upper civil and military
bureaucracy the elements of German origin were, and
still are, very numerous. This state of affairs has
been summed up by an eminent contemporary, Emile
Vandervelde, in the following sentence : M Russia is
the greatest democracy in the world, ruled by a small
German colony."

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 135

IV

The coup d'etat of 1801, which deprived Paul I
of his throne and his life, was not the retaliation of
patriotism, as was the fall of his father, Peter III, or
the elevation to the throne of Yelisaveta. But foreign
influence played a very large part in it.

The Russian nobility, as we have seen, was extremely
dissatisfied with the economic policy followed by Paul I
in respect of England. M The rupture with England,
which was injurious to the material interests of the
nobility, increased its hatred of Paul, which had already
been whetted by a cruel despotism. The thought of
annihilating Paul, by whatever means, became almost
general," writes a contemporary.

But the foreign policy of the Tsar was still more
odious to the English Government and to English trade.
This explains why England, in the person of the English
Ambassador, was involved in the plot against Paul.

'•' English diplomacy did all it could to overthrow
Paul. The English Ambassador in Petersburg, Whit-
worth, took an active part in the first conspiracy against
Paul (the plot was spun in the spring of 1800, that
is, about a year before the final catastrophe) . . .
whose very form was ' English ' : Paul was to have
been declared insane, as George III of England was
a little later ; and Alexander Pavlovitch would have
become Regent. The enterprise was so far decided
upon that Panine (in touch with Whitworth and the
leader of the conspiracy) was already inquiring of
foreign diplomatists as to the forms with which such
an action would be invested abroad ; this was neces-
sary, for England, a parliamentary State, could not
furnish Russia with any juridical precedent."

And the failure, or rather the miscarriage, of the
first conspiracy, according to the same historian, was
due to the fact that .Whitworth had left Petersburg ;
but from abroad he still remained in touch with the
Russian nobility, Paul's enemies, and continued to aid

136 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

in fostering the excitement which prepared the way
for the second conspiracy and the violent death of
the sovereign.

British diplomacy was not deceived in its calcula-
tions, for the overthrow of Paul resulted in the imme-
diate " reconciliation of Russia with England," as Prince
Adam Czartoryski remarks in his Memoirs.

Profitable to England, the death of Paul was by no
means disadvantageous to Russia, for he was one of
the worst tyrants known to history.

One might add that by contributing, on this
occasion, to the deliverance of Russia, England made
up, to some extent, for the support which she had
formerly given Biron and his German acolytes, the
exploiters and oppressors of the Russian people.

Although the nobles who overthrew Paul I received
advice and perhaps material help from England, the
ideas which gave birth to their conspiracy and the
pleas in its favour were borrowed from France. Certain
memoirs of contemporary Russian nobles endeavour to
justify the murder of the tyrant by arguments taken
from the French revolutionary authors. They speak
of the just and holy hatred of tyranny in the expressive
language of the sans- culottes ; so that a Russian Con-
servative, Count Rostopshin, jestingly remarked that
in Russia the aristocrats had aims which in France
were the speciality of cobblers.

But, as we shall see, this comparison is not exact.

CHAPTER III

I. The renaissance of feudalism — Catherine II and the European
sources of her ideas. II. Attempts to Europeanize Russia under
Alexander I — Anglophilia — Central institutions — Speransky and
his French loans. III. The Decembrists — The European elements
in their ideology and their actions — The Spanish model — The
reaction of Austro-German origin — The Baltic nobles crush the
insurrection of the Decembrists.

We must not exaggerate the social amplitude or political
significance of those " revolutions " which from time
to time, during the eighteenth century, shook the Russian
throne. Despite all the violence which they displayed,
they were yet limited to a clash between the central
power and the nobility, and the great masses of the
people did not take part in them.

Despite their phraseology, often extremely demo-
cratic, the nobles were in reality contending merely for
their own class interests, which during this century
achieved an increasingly complete supremacy. In the
seventeenth century and the first quarter of the
eighteenth, service in the civil or military administra-
tion was obligatory for the nobility, and the law estab-
lished two categories of landed property as affecting
the nobility : the votschina and the pomiestie. The
first was a true hereditary estate, the second was merely
a benefice of which the Tsar remained the proprietor,
granting the usufruct to the nobles in payment for
services. In 1731 the nobility obtained a ukase which
abolished the distinction between the two kinds of

property, and the pomiestii, with the peasants attached

m

138 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

to the soil, belonged thenceforward unconditionally to
their holders. In 1753, under Yelisaveta, the State
undertook the material support of the nobility and
created the Nobles' Bank to grant them credit on
favourable terms. But these privileges did not satisfy
them, and they demanded the abolition of obligatory
service. Yelisaveta gave way, and in a manifesto,
published in 1762 by her successor, Peter III, and
known as " the Manifesto concerning the liberty of
the Nobility," exempted the nobility from service
in the civil administration and the army, so that what
had been a legal obligation was now only a moral
duty. From that time the dvorianie (nobles) ceased to
be the serfs of the State. They became its masters,
for about this time they themselves had realized the
advantages attaching to the possession of administra-
tive posts of any importance. The " table of ranks "
remained legally in force, but in fact the bureaucratic
hierarchy began to correspond with the aristocratic
hierarchy, with its "genealogical books": as on the
one hand officials who had reached a certain grade
obtained a title of nobility, while on the other hand the
nobility reserved for itself the majority of the higher
posts, so that the " table of ranks " lost the character
which Peter the Great had wished it to preserve, and
little by little became, at least in respect of its higher
grades, a fresh means of reinforcing the power of the
nobility.

The seigneurs, absolute and irresponsible masters
of their serfs in their pomiest'iis, dealt with affairs of
State in the same spirit. The administration of the
Empire resembled that of a seigneurial domain. Public
interest was assimilated to private interest in that the
officials whose duty it was to watch over it subordi-
nated it to their personal aspirations and made use
of it to enrich themselves. All other classes — the
bourgeoisie, higher and lower, the peasantry, and the
clergy — were regarded as inferior to the nobility.
Russia had become a State of nobles.

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 139

II

In one of the chapters of the first Part of this book
I have demonstrated that the increasing power of the
nobility was opposed to the economic evolution of the
country, and also checked the development of capitalistic
industry. From the third quarter of the eighteenth
century an opposition between the economic tendencies
and the political forms of the State became increasingly
apparent.

Moreover, the peasants, exploited by the nobles,
began to grow impatient. As early as the reign of
Yelisaveta a series of disturbances broke out in the
midst of the rural population.

All these disorders on the one hand, and on the other
the invasion of European ideas, impelled the Govern-
ment of Catherine II to attempt certain reforms.

As to the foreign inspiration of Catherine's ideas,
modern historians have discovered that it was far more
extensive, although far more superficial, than was
formerly supposed. It has been proved that the most
important political work of this sovereign, that known
as the Nakaz, was merely a systematic plagiarism of
Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois. M. Pokrovsky states
that Catherine simply stole from Montesquieu. M.
Haumant, more chivalrous in his dealings with this
crowned head, expresses the same opinion with more
politeness. '•' Indeed," he says, " in the Nakaz it is
Montesquieu who, wielding the pen of Catherine, treats
of government, of justice, of the rights of the citizen —
excepting when, as occasionally, it is his disciple
Beccaria."

Catherine wrote her Nakaz (Instructions) so that
it might serve as instructions to the Commission which
was to elaborate the new code of laws ; a Commission
invoked by her in 1767, again under the impulse of
Western Liberalism. This body was composed of
delegates of the various classes of society, the clergy
and the peasantry excepted. This exclusion of the

140 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

peasantry shows that the Government's views were not
sufficiently broad to assure all citizens of the possibility
of making audible their complaints and their desires.

The labours of the Commission, whose members,
coming from various regions of Russia, presented the
nakazy of their electors, brought to light, in the first
place, a conflict between the nobility and the bourgeoisie
of the cities, the latter being prejudiced by the privi-
leges of the former, and, secondly, the fact that the
nobles themselves were not satisfied with the situation,
but desired to extend their rights by limiting the power
of the monarch. Severe criticism was expressed by
the members of the Commission, and Catherine replied
by dissolving the assembly. Thus died, before it had
really entered upon life, this feeble imitation of the
States General of France.

This brief incident shows how far Russia then differed
from France. The convocation of the States General
in France led to the revolutionary movement and the
end of the monarchy ; the rapid dissolution of the
Commission of 1767, on the other hand, proves that in
Russia the monarchical power won the day against
the forces which might have become hostile to it. In
France the Third Estate, having become economically
stronger than the noblesse, was in a position to seize
upon the political reins also ; whereas in Russia the
noblesse, economically and politically, kept the upper
hand. The last States General convoked in France
resulted in a clash between the Third Estate and the
nobility, which was supported by the power of royalty ;
the Russian Commission of 1767 betrayed only the
most superficial disagreement between the nobility and
absolutism.

The dissolution of the Commission irritated the
nobles ; but a social and political danger made its
appearance, which suddenly reconciled them with the
central power : the insurrection directed against them
both by the Cossacks and the peasants, led by Yemelian
Pugatshev, during the years 177.3-75.

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 141

Pugatshev's rising had nothing1 anti-monarchical
about it ; indeed, its leader, in order to gain the
sympathies of the population, assumed the title of the
Tsar Peter III (who had been deposed and put to
death by Catherine IPs supporters). The Cossacks
and peasants led by him rose against the Empress in
the name of the " lawful Tsar " ; another dissimilarity
to the beginnings of the French Revolution, in which
the republican tendencies were so evident.

But the Pugatshevshtshina had well-defined social
aims : it was directed against the nobles, of whom
more than fourteen hundred (according to the official
figures) were hanged by Pugatshev and his partisans.

Catherine had reasons for fearing this revolt. She
herself had aggravated the economical and legal con-
ditions of the peasants; by one of her ukases she
forbade serfs to lodge complaints against their masters
in the courts or with the Government. This inhuman
measure dated from 1767 — that is, the very year in
which the Empress convoked the famous Commission
which was to elaborate the new code, and copied, jn
her manuscript books, the liberal propositions of the
French Encyclopaedists. Three delegates sent to
Petersburg, despite the prohibition, by serfs employed
in provincial industries, in order to lodge complaints
against those who were exploiting them and torturing
them, were cruelly punished, each receiving a hundred
blows of the knout, after which their noses were burned
with hot irons and they were deported to Siberia for life.

While discussing lofty problems of justice and liberty
with the French philosophers, Catherine extended serf-
dom, introducing it in regions in which it had never
yet existed (in the Ukraine). She distributed lands
with the peasants dwelling thereon to many of her
favourites. She was thus personally interested in the
regime against which Pugatshev had taken up arms.
The Pugatshevshtshina reconciled her with that portion
of the nobility which the fate of the Commission inclined
to rebellion. In face of the danger threatening them,

142 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

peasants, nobles, and the autocracy were united. The
phraseology of the " cobblers " was quickly rejected
by the alarmed nobles.

Later on it was the French Revolution which gave
the masters of Russia another lesson of the same kind.
The schemes of liberal reform were finally forgotten by
Catherine, and the country, at the end of her reign,
retained the same seigneurial regime as before her
time. It is true that Catherine II wished to make
certain concessions to the middle-class citizen, and she
published, in 1785, the " Charter granted to the Cities,"
which enabled them to elect municipal councils or dum>y.
But these dunvy had no real power and no real rights ;
they were empowered and intended merely to super-
vise the incidence and collection of the taxes, whose
tariff was determined not by them, but by the Govern-
ment. The sovereign authority, on the other hand,
became still more powerful. The number of the
governors increased, and their powers were extended,
under Catherine II, who created new gubernii, and
then a mass of administrative and judicial machinery
in each gubernlya ; the gubernskoye pravlenie for
general administration, the kazennaya palata (fiscal
chamber), and the kaznatsheistvo (treasury), and certain
general and special tribunals. This system brought
a certain external order into the working of the
machinery of oppression, and it subsisted into the
middle of the nineteenth century, until the " Period
of the Great Reforms," under Alexander II. But at
bottom it was half-bureaucratic, half -feudal. The
governors, officially termed *•' masters of the guber-
niya" justified their title by exercising an absolute
power, and the memory of the " satraps of Catherine "
is even yet not extinct. These officials were selected
from among the noble seigneurs.

The nobility also obtained a " charter " from
Catherine ; it bore no resemblance whatever to the
charter of the cities, but completed the emancipation
of the nobility, which was commenced by the mani-

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 143

festo of 1762. Finally liberated from all responsi-
bility toward the State, it was endowed with a
corporative Constitution, with the faculty of forming,
in each guberniya, a privileged body, and the right
of representation in all the various administrative
bodies. It therefore shared with the Crown in the
direction of affairs.

Such were the reforms of Catherine, the pupil of
Voltaire, Diderot, and Montesquieu. Such was the
orientation of the life of the Russian Empire at the
precise moment when the noblesse of France was on
the eve of losing all its privileges and the French
people was changing the monarchy for a Republic.

II

A few changes of form were thus introduced in the
local administrations, but Catherine left intact the entire
central organism of the Empire and its entire social
basis. Yet she herself perfectly well understood that
it was precisely here that the real Europeanization of
the Government must commence.

The principal peculiarity of the modern European
State, which distinguishes it from the feudal State-
domain, in which the private interest of the master
replaces the public interest, and of the Asiatic .despotism,
in which the personal will of the sovereign is above
all laws, consists precisely in the fact that its legisla-
tion is not subject to the arbitrary will of an absolute
monarch. This principle was still unknown to the
Russian Empire at the end of the eighteenth century.

Catherine II wished to remedy this grave defect.
She devotes a page of her Nakaz to proving the neces-
sity of establishing a juridical distinction between a
law, which is a stable disposition, and a ukase, which
it issued on account of a particular and ephemeral
need. In order that the laws should derive from another
source than the Governmental decrees, it was therefore
necessary to create legislative institutions. Catherine II
did nothing of the kind ; she maintained the omnipo-

144 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

tence of the autocrat, the legislator, and the master of
the Government. In this respect, therefore, the Empire
was inferior to the Muscovite zemstvo of the sixteenth
and eighteenth centuries, which comprised a Boyarskaiya
(Council of Boyars) entrusted with the preparation
of new laws, and the Zemskii Sobory (territorial
assemblies), to which the representatives of the various
provinces were convoked from time to time in order
to discuss the principal problems of legislation.

Catherine's successor was completely hostile to all
ideas of national representation.1 He preferred to
govern by means of ukases, issued at random, which
dealt with the most important affairs of State and the
pettiest questions of private life, conditioning even the
shape of hats or carriages. The permanent interven-
tion of the supreme power contributed greatly to
increase the hatred felt for it by its subjects.
Alexander I had to devote several months to issuing
a series of ukases annulling those of his predecessor.

Then Alexander I and his collaborators began to
elaborate schemes of reform. The necessity of re-
establishing the alliance with England having been one
of the principal causes of the fall of Paul I, his son,
at the beginning of his reign, displayed a certain degree
of Anglophilia, under the influence of his " young
friends," Novossiltsev and Kotshubey. There was some
question of creating a House of Lords and a respon-
sible Ministry, after the English pattern. The celebrated
English jurist, Jeremy Bentham, was asked for his advice.

But in place of a House of Lords the year 1801 saw
the birth of a Permanent Council {Nepremenny Soviet),
appointed by the Emperor, whose mission was " to
establish the power and the prosperity of the Empire
on the immovable foundation of the law." He also

* The following fact proves the strength of this hostility : Paul I
undertook a journey in the east of Russia in the company of a member
of his suite, who showed him a wood, saying, " Your Majesty, these
are the first representatives of the forests of the Ural." Paul was
so offended by the phrase that he disgraced the person who had
employed it.

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 145

created responsible Ministries, but they were respon-
sible only to the Emperor. The Senate, in 1802,
obtained the right to make " representations " to the
Emperor respecting defective laws and ukases ; but
when it ventured to make use of this privilege the
Emperor appeared to be so greatly displeased that it
did not repeat the experiment. The first years of
Alexander's reign did no more than introduce a few
superficial modifications of the bureaucratic machine.

In reality, a fancy for reform and the real aspirations
of the absolute power were irreconcilable. " Alexander
positively desired that the ministers should be respon-
sible. ' But if a minister refused to countersign a ukase
of your Majesty's,' some one objected, ' would that
ukase nevertheless be valid?' 'Certainly,' he replied;
' my ukase must in any case be executed.' That is how
he conceived responsibility." *

Ten years later Alexander was attacked by a fresh
access of the reforming fever, and entrusted Speransky
with the preparation of a scheme of complete renovation
as regards the central institutions of the State. An
admirer of Napoleonic France, Speransky borrowed
therefrom nearly all the essential elements of his struc-
ture. He admitted the principle of the separation of
powers, concentrated the executive in the hands of the
Council of Ministers, referred the judicial power to the
Senate and the legislative power to a State Duma
{Gosudarstvennaiya Duma), consisting of deputies
elected according to the principles of the French
Constitution of the year VIII.

This system was fairly favourable to the bourgeois
influences in social and economic life. A modern his-
torian even regards Speransky as " the interpreter of a
bourgeoisie enriched by the Continental Blockade, and
aspiring to overthrow the autocracy and the privileges
of the nobles by means of a Constitution." It is to be

1 A. Pypine, Member of the Imperial Academy of Petersburg, The
Social Movement in Russia under Alexander I, 3rd ed. (Petersburg,
1900), p. 118.

10

146 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

remarked, by the way, that it was under Alexander I
that the bourgeoisie was finally permitted to buy landed
property, a privilege previously confined to the nobles.

But the " Third Estate " of Russia once more proved
too weak to despoil the nobility, and Speransky's plan
was executed only very imperfectly.

The State Duma projected by him, although con-
sultative and deprived of any right of initiative, seemed
too dangerous to the autocracy, and a Council of
State only was established {Gosudarstvennyi Soviet),
appointed by the Emperor. According to Speransky,
the legal decisions of this Council were to possess the
force of law only after the approbation of the Emperor,
while the Imperial ordinances, issued in the form of
ukases, could not be regarded as laws. But Alexander
never regarded himself as bound by the decisions of the
Council ; very often he approved of the recommenda-
tions not of the majority but the minority, and some-
times he would even take the part of a single member
against all the rest, annulling the entire work of the
Assembly by a stroke of the pen.

Toward the end of his reign the role of the Council
of State was reduced to the vanishing-point, and the
Council of Ministers possessed itself of the entire legis-
lative power, submitting directly to the Imperial appro-
bation measures which should have been passed by
the Council of State.

After 1 8 1 5 the spirit of reaction finally got the upper
hand, raising to power a brutal and unintelligent man,
the cruel Count Araktsheev. The official attempt to re-
organize and Europeanize the State was thus check-
mated. " Russian progress does not follow a straight
line, but zigzags," and " the fair commencement of the
days of Alexander " ended in a gloomy regression.

Ill
The power of the State continually failing to realize
any real amelioration of the political system, the
Liberals and progressives endeavoured to make up for

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 147

its deficiencies. The solution adopted by the Decern1'
brists was more radical than that of the " young
friends " of Alexander and Speransky. Instead of a
subtle distinction between a " law " and a " ukase,"
between a legal measure voted by the Council of Empire
and a personal decree of the sovereign's, they intended
to evade even the possibility of a conflict between the
two authorities, and to confine legislation to one single
and constitutional source.

The Decembrists sought models in Europe ; their
projects for a constitutziya (constitution) were copied
from Western institutions.

The more modern were borrowed from England.
That of Nikita Muraviev consisted, according to the>
testimony of his comrade Yakushkin, of "an abridged
reproduction of the British Constitution." Some his-
torians assert (and M. Emile Haumant repeats in Jus
Culture f ran false en Russie) that the partisans of Nikita
Muraviev had obtained the essential points of their
system from the laws of the United States. " The Con-
stitution of the United States furnished most of the
articles relating to the power of the prince." This is
an obvious error, for the United States knew nothing of
the " power of the prince," so could not afford any
precedent on this point. A contemporary says of
Muraviev's project : *' Admitting the monarchical form
of government, it differed fundamentally from the
American Constitution in the aristocratic principle of its
franchise. ... It granted the enjoyment of political
rights to a fairly considerable franchise as regards
eligibility, and a smaller, but still indispensable rating,
as regards the electorate." It was, therefore, not from
the American Constitution that the moderate Decem-
brists obtained the fundamental elements of their own
project, but only its details. For the general provisions of
the scheme it was always to England that they applied.

Nikita Muraviev even placed under contribution some
articles of the Spanish Constitution of 1812, this being
at the time the newest, although its origins went back

148 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

to the French Constitution of 1791 and the Declaration
of Rights.

His comrades, more radical, having Pestel at their
head, were the immediate pupils of France. Pestel
followed Destutt de Tracy step by step ; to him he
owed all that was essential in his conceptions ; a
strongly pronounced republicanism, an absolute rejec-
tion of hereditary monarchy, and governmental cen-
tralization. In France also he found an organization
of the powers of the State suited to his Russian
Republic: a Directory resembling that of the year
III, two legislative assemblies, like the Council of
Ancients and the Five Hundred, judicial institutions, etc.

The Decembrists were the disciples of Europe also
in the matter of the means by which they should attain
their ends. The political societies which they founded
reproduced the European models which those of their
party who had served in the last wars against France
had learned to know in the West. The statutes which
they drafted were an adaptation, sometimes an almost
literal translation, of those of the German Jugendbund.
Naturally, the Decembrist associations, being illegal and
revolutionary, had no other resemblance to the Jugend-
bund, which was legal and conservative, having been
formed M to support the throne of the sovereign of
Prussia and the House of Hohenzollern against the
immoral spirit of the period " — that is, the revolutionary
spirit. This is why the Decembrists, while borrowing
the phrasing of their statutes from the Jugendbund,
borrowed the spirit of their activity, from Republican
France and her institutions.

They were particularly impressed by the Spanish
revolutionary movement, which was directed, like their
own, by officers. The leader of the military rising of
1820, General Riego, who was executed, was for them
a " holy martyr," and they distributed his portrait in
Petersburg in a spirit of propaganda. The history of
Spain filled some Russian Liberals with hatred of the
monarchy and attached them to the Republic. The

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 149

author of one of the projected Constitutions, Count
Dmitriev Momanov, wrote that the Spanish system was
a very wise one, but was not entirely suited to Russia,
since it retained the monarchical principle. " iWhat has
become of the members of the Cortes? " he asks indig-
nantly. " They were deported, tortured, condemned to
death— and by whom? By an animal for whom they
had preserved the crown."

M. Haumant reproaches the Decembrists with not
having reckoned sufficiently with the spirit of the public,
which was not ready for the transformations imagined
by them, and with having sought " to transplant France
into Russia." This reproach is not merited, for the
Decembrists made many concessions to the ideas and
conditions then prevailing, and even to the interests of
the nobles, to which class they belonged. Other modern
historians accuse the Decembrists of having been too
moderate in the social department of their programme.

.What is certain is that the love of country animated
the Decembrists and guided all their aspirations. On
the other hand, the reactionary policy which they were
righting so ardently was truly inimical to the nation,
hindering its development, and was only too often in-
spired by alien influences, as is very clearly demon-
strated by the Russian academician, A. Pypine, in his
excellent work on The Social Movement in Russia tinder
Alexander I.

" Shortly after the Congress of Vienna the peoples
emerged from their enchantment. Instead of free insti-
tutions the reaction created that * policeman's State '
which, says a German writer, ' knew nothing of citizens
dwelling in a fatherland, but merely ruled herds which
were brutish as domestic cattle.' This form of ' police-
man's State ' had long been established in Germany and!
Austria. During the later years of Alexander's reign an
attempt was made to extend it to Russia ; the pro-
cedures and the language which this form of government
had invented were adopted, and were for a long time to
maintain themselves intact in our country. After the

150 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Congress of Vienna, Alexander was surrounded by the
inspirations and the secret counsels of the German reac-
tionaries. . . . Hatred of popular liberty reached an
especial development in Austria. In Vienna the aristo-
cratic reaction was hatching its schemes. Metternich
and his right hand, Geuz, invented a theory of reaction ;
and the house of the Russian Ambassador, A. Razou-
movsky, became, among others, an asylum for aristo-
crats from all parts of Europe. The higher circles of
Russian society, which prided itself on its political
influence, and liked to think itself a power in European
affairs, readily absorbed the ideas of the Austrian
feudalists and the French emigris. . .. . Austrian
diplomacy, as early as 1813, was suspicious of the
democratic movement in Prussia. . „ . The King of
Prussia readily, assented to these suggestions, and even
went beyond them. . ,. . »We know, on the other hand,
what were the opinions of the French Emperor, who
could not suffer the word ' constitution,' even in the
medical sense. Such were the men to whom the
Emperor Alexander joined himself to form the Holy

Alliance iW.e will not enter into the details of

the ways in which the European reaction crept into
Alexander's mind ; it is enough to say. that by 1820
he shared its views, and the last years of his reign
presented a strange imitation of the measures then
invented by the German ' policeman's State ' against
pretended conspiracies and an imaginary spirit of
revolution." l

The work of the external reaction was reinforced
internally by that of the aristocrats and the foreign
bureaucrats in general and the German bureaucrats in
particular. Even during the war of 181 2 certain
Russians were annoyed by the preponderating power
exerted by the aliens in Alexander's immediate
entourage, and by the German generals in particular,
certain of whom were thoroughly incapable, like the
famous General Pfuhl, of whom Tolstoi gives us so

• A. Pypine, op. cit. pp. 431-33.

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 151

living a portrait in his War and Peace. This clearly
explains the ultra-nationalistic traits to be found in
the projected Constitutions of the Russian Liberals
and Radicals of Alexander's reign. Thus Dmitriev-
Mamonov held that the members of the House of
Lords which he considered necessary should be of the
Graeco- Russian faith, and none were to be elected to
the second chamber but Russians, members of the
Orthodox Church. The Order of the Knights of Russia,
the precursor of the Decembrist societies, aimed, among
other things, at " depriving foreigners of all influence
in affairs of State," and even at " deporting for good
and all, and even putting to death, foreigners occupying
posts in the State." One of the Decembrist leaders, A.
Muraviev, on founding the political society known as
the Union of Security, stated that it was destined to
M fight the Germans in the service of Russia."

Among those who took part in the insurrection of
December 14, 1825, we find very few bearers of
German names. Pestel, and Pushkin's friend, the poet
Kuchelbaecker, were sincere Russian patriots, though of
German birth. The very names of the Decembrist and
anti-Decembrist societies proclaim their nationalism ; the
Order of Russian Knights, the Society of United Slavs.

Among their adversaries, the aristocracy and the
reactionary bureaucrats, German names were of com-
mon occurrence ; and the Germans displayed a great
activity. The first disturbances in the Imperial Guard,
which occurred in 1820, were provoked by the hateful
brutality of the German colonel, Schwarz, commander
of the Semenovsky Regiment. The Decembrist insur-
rection itself was crushed by German hands. When the
insurgents assembled in the Place du Senat in order to
demand a Constitution, and began their armed attack
(which was not well prepared), the Russian generals
did not know what to do. But "the Baltic officers
decided to take the initiative, and it was on the advice
of Baron Tol that artillery fire was opened upon the
conspirators." Nicolas I desired, later on, to "draw a

152 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

veil over the part played by the Germans in the repres-
sion of the rising," says M. Pokrovsky, but " when one
runs through the list of the champions of the ' rightful
cause ' against the revolt, one is struck by the abundance
of Baltic names : those of the Benkendorffs, Griinwalds,
Frederichs, and Kaulbars gleam from every page." In
fact, says M. Pokrovsky, the German noblesse of the
Baltic provinces " was the most strongly feudal of all
the nobles of the Empire."

" The most loyal of the Germans " was Prince
Eugene of Wiirtemberg, general in the Russian Army ;
and it was he who assumed the command of the troops
hurled against the insurrection.

CHAPTER IV

I. The Tartar o- Prussian Empire under Nicolas I — The knout and
the shpitzruteny — The necessity of reforms. II. The " Period
of the Great Reforms " and its European sources — A fresh step
to the rear.

The revolution once suppressed, and the Decembrists
hanged or deported and legal order re-established, it
only remained for the Government of Nicolas I to main-
tain it. How disastrous were the measures taken with
this end in view we have already seen by the opinion
quoted on an earlier page, of General Kuropatkin, ex-
Minister of War. Under Nicolas I the despotic Asiatic
conceptions of government attained their greatest ex-
pansion, and the Russian Tsar became " the most
powerful sovereign in the world." In order to preserve
his power intact, the Government endeavoured to,
separate Russia from the civilization of the .West by
hermetically sealed partitions. The only " European "
model which it regarded as worthy of being followed
in Russia was the police and military system of Prussia.
To combine the slavery of the East with the discipline
of the Prussian barracks — this was the naive ideal of the
autocracy and the bureaucracy.

It was realized to perfection in the " military
colonies " organized by Count Araktsheev. The
peasants attached to these colonies lived in houses of
the same dimensions and the same colour, which were
ranged along the street like a rank of soldiers. They
cultivated the soil, divided, like soldiers, into com-
panies, under the supervision and command of

153

154 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

" leaders." Their agricultural labours were thus
veritably " militarized " in the Prussian manner, and
their life as well. Every action, every movement of
these peasants was regulated and ordered beforehand.

The administration was convinced that the authorities
ought to inspire a " salutary dread " in the people. The
Tartar knout and the German shpitzruteny were its
principal instruments.1 Here is a description of the
punishment of the shpitzruteny introduced by Arakt-
sheev, whose name {spitzruten) indicates its origin: —

" A thousand brave Russian soldiers stand in two
ranks, facing one another. In the hand of each man
is placed a rod — shpitzruten ; the living ' green lane '
is gaily waving, swaying in the air. They bring the
criminal, naked to the belt ; his arms are attached to
the stocks of two muskets ; before him march two
soldiers, who make sure that he shall go forward slowly,
so that the shpitzruten shall have time to leave its marks
on his skin. Behind him, on a sledge, is a coffin. The
sentence is read ; the lugubrious rolling of the drum
is heard. One, two I And the green lane begins to
lash the victim on the right side, then on the left. . . .
In a few minutes his body is covered with broad stripes,
red and contused ; the drops of blood spring to the
surface. . . . ' Have pity, my little brothers ! ' This
cry pierces the dull rolling of the drum. But to have
pity is to be beaten in turn, then and there. So the lane
of birch-rods strikes more fiercely. Soon the back and
sides are simply one wound ; here and there the skin
comes off in strips. The living dead advances slowly,

' M. Anatole Leroy-Beaulicu states that the word knout " seems
rather of Aryan origin, if it is not Germanic ; it has at all events
the same root as the German knotcn " (L Empire des Tsars ct Us
Russes, vol. ii. p. 414, 3rd ed.). " For the rest, corporal punish-
ments were characteristic of ancient Russia, in which the Byzantine
influence was perhaps in reality more ancient than the Tartar in-
fluence." To this assertion we may oppose that of Count Orlov,
who declared, as long ago as 1861, that " where Russia was able to
develop without the direct influence of the Mongols and the tshinovniki
there were no corporal punishments."

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 155

bound to the rifle-butts, covered with tatters of his
own flesh, wildly rolling his leaden eyes. . . . He falls.
But he must still be beaten — for a long time yet. The
body is placed on the sledge and again he passes, and
again, between the two ranks, whence fall without inter-
mission the blows of the shpitzruteny, which cut into the
bloody pulp. The moans have ceased ; one hears only
a sort of clapping sound, like the sound of a stick
striking the water, and the funeral drums are muttering
still." •

A State in which such savagery survived — even though
ordered and disciplined in the Prussian manner — could
not long co-exist with civilized States. Russia was
forced either to fall asunder or to transform herself.

II

When the deb dele of the Crimea had opened the eyes
of all those who were capable of understanding, demon-
strating the impossibility of maintaining the ancien
regime, Russia, as in her earlier crises, applied to the
civilization of the West for remedies. The "great
reforms " of 1860-70 were thus merely a phase of
Europeanization . Thus they appeared to their partisans,
as well as to their adversaries.

One publicist, for example, a noble and a reactionary,
opposed them in order to preserve the old institu-
tions : —

" Each volost (canton) is governed by a parliament ;
in each ouyezd (district) there is a parliament ; in the
gubernii there will probably be the same," he complains
with indignation, " and finally, the centre of the State
must be transformed in the same manner. Thus cen-
tralization is adopted for the basis of the administration,
and a condition of this centralization is parliamentarism.
And the surroundings necessary to this monster, we have
them, too : justice rendered publicly, oral procedure,
the division of powers, and, to cap it all, the jury. In

1 Gregor Djanshiev, The Period of the Great Reforms, 9th ed.
(Moscow, 1905), pp. 187, 188.

156 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

a word, instead of Russia we see a Western State.
Gentlemen, in the matter of the reactionary demands
of the Liberals, have you not gone too far along the
path of transformation? " »

The partisans of this " transformation " considered,
on the other hand, that the reforms ought to be carried
as far as possible, precisely because the state of Russia
was so backward ; and that no compromise with the old
Russia was acceptable. Here, for example, is what a
provincial Procurator wrote during the discussion of the
judicial reform, which was effected in 1864: —

" In England the people and the Government, society
and justice, develop simultaneously. The result is that
these factors agree and collaborate, and the law is a
common product and a common possession. As for our
society, it participated in nothing ; it existed in a state
of lethargy."

Replying to those who wished to "go slowly," the
same writer replied : —

" On the contrary, we must transform things more
rapidly and more resolutely. Deliberateness in reforms
is always harmful ; the help of all is necessary. Half-
measures never lead us to the goal ; they are almost
always disastrous. Everything must be transformed
at the same time. For, if the old system is not good,
it must be suppressed entirely, not in part ; we must
not mix the old with the new. . . . If we were not
alive, humanity existed. That which humanity has
acquired, with that we must endow our resurrection,
and by means of reforms take our part of the good
which belongs to all the peoples, and for which the
advanced peoples have laboured in the interests of
humanity." 2

To those who expressed the fear — generally facti-
tious— that sudden reforms might provoke administrative

■ Among the most notorious agents of reaction and oppression
under Nicolas I we hnd, as always, the bearers of aristocratic German
names, the Counts Adlerberg, Benckendorf, Kleinmichel, etc.

• J. Guessen, The Reform of the Judiciary (Petersburg, 1905), pp. 82-4.

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 157

disorder, the champions of progress cited the experience
of the European States.

" Among others, the example of Hanover (where the
situation, as regards the judicial organization, was
perhaps even worse than with us) demonstrates the
possible rapidity and facility of such transformations.
Publicity of judicial debates was in Hanover intro-
duced at a single stroke, by the law of the 8th ofl
November 1850; and the oldest magistrates and
advocates accepted it with enthusiasm. It was the
same in Piedmont. This proves that there is no need
of any gradation in reform."

The same divergence appeared in respect of each
separate question. In the course of the discussion
on the introduction of the jury system, a Conservative
Senator wrote : —

11 Authentic information as to this form of jurisdic-
tion dates only from the reign of Henry III, from a time
when the struggle against revolt had ceased only after
the King had confirmed the Magna Charta Libertatum
of John Lackland. . . . The jury, born of a period
thus full of disturbances, and under the conditions de-
scribed, was doubtless regarded not as a means merely
of ameliorating the judicial system, but also as a weapon
to defend the interests of the people against the en-
croachments of the supreme power." And as Russia,
he adds, is an autocracy, " the jury will be in absolute
contradiction to the fundamental laws of the State."

To these excesses of loyalism a provincial advocate
objected the modern history of England. Against the
proposal to withhold political crimes from the compe-
tence of the jury, he fulminates in the following terms :
" It is said that these exceptions are in imitation of
France, and that they do not exist in England. One
may inquire, however, where the greatest tranquillity,
reigns — among the French people or the English." 1

European experience was of service not only in philo-
sophic discussions of a private nature concerning the
* J. Guessen, op. cit. p. 93.

158 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

" great reforms," but also in the labours of the official
bodies which were preparing the texts of the new laws.

Thus the Government instructed a special commission
to study the organization of the judiciary in Europe,
and particularly in France and England. In the rescript
relating to its labours, which was published at the
beginning of 1862, it is stated that the new judicial
system is to be established " according to the teachings
of science and the experience of the European States."

As M. Leroy-Beaulieu remarks in his Empire des
Tsars, " neither the teachings of science nor the coun-
sels of experience were lacking among the promoters
of the judicial reform." In its liberty to do all things
and attempt all things the St. Petersburg Government
had on this occasion by no means set its mind upon
doing something new. The reform of the courts was
less an original creation than a combination and adapta-
tion of various elements, nearly all of which were
borrowed from the more advanced nations of Europe.1
M. Leroy-Beaulieu considers that the reorganization of
the judicial system was more successful than the other
M great reforms " precisely because of the preponderat-
ing influence of European examples.

" If the judicial reform was the most largely con-
ceived and the most resolutely executed of all the great
reforms of the Emperor Alexander II, it was for this
reason : instead of being based on empirical data and
the convenience of the moment, it had a rational basis,
reposing at once on general ideas accepted by all modern
peoples, and on the practice of the more civilized States.
Thus, despite the repeated deviations of a Govern-
ment always too liable to go back on its own laws,
this reform displayed what was often lacking to con-
temporary reforms : unity and consistency."

In this connection, how was it that the teaching
derived from Europe was most plainly evident and
most closely followed in the domain of justice in par-
ticular? The reason is that the attempt to Europeanize
1 A. Leroy-lieaulieu, L' Empire des Tsars, vol. ii. p. 289.

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 159

Russia which was made in Alexander's time had its
point of departure in the cmbourgeoisement of Russia.
A stable, prompt, and uniform judicial system is an
essential condition of the civil and economic relations
of a bourgeois system of Government. We know, for
example, that the invasion of Oriental countries by
Europeans and European capital has always led to the
establishment of the system of M capitulations," which
renders them amenable to special tribunals and protects
them from native justice. European forms and elements
having permeated the economic life of Russia, it became
necessary to Europeanize the judicial institutions, wholly
archaic and Asiatic, which well merited their charac-
teristic cognomen of volokita (from volotshit, which
means to protract, to spin out). And as the old Russian
justice was in reality the negation of all justice, it was
necessary to suppress it altogether and to replace it
by an entirely new system. Even the nobles and the
bureaucrats understood that this necessity was absolute,
and they did not oppose the judicial reform as ener-
getically as they opposed other reforms, in which the
influence of Europe was less apparent.

In my Modern Russia I have explained the character
of the " great reforms " accomplished by the Govern-
ment of Alexander II, and notably of the agrarian
reform of 1861, and the introduction of local self-
government in 1 86 1 and 1870. Even then the seigneurs
and bureaucrats were striving to maintain their domi-
nation and to safeguard their interests. The peasants,
although now liberated, remained in economic and
juridical dependence on the nobles. The zemstvos were
subject to the property franchise, and the system of
electoral curia, in which the nobles predominated.
Members of the urban municipalities also were elected
by a property franchise. The zemstvos and the muni-
cipalities were placed under the tutelage of the
Governors ; and the presidency of the zemstvos became
a privilege of the marshals of the noblesse. In 1863
corporal punishments were abolished in principle, except

160 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

in the case of peasants, on whom the rural tribunals
could still inflict such punishment. In short, the " great
reforms " emerged from the hands of the Governmental
commissions diminished and mutilated ; the feudal
system was not definitely overthrown, and a little later,
under Alexander III, it took its revenge.

The counter - reformation accomplished by this
monarch is in a certain measure to be explained
by international causes, but indirectly only. As I have
already pointed out in my Modern Russia, it really
originated as a slackening or relative decline of
economic activity. The agrarian crisis, which had
hampered the progress of agriculture and other forces
of production in general, lowered the standard of
material life, and, consequently, of social and political
life. The reinforcement of old economic forms and
relations resulted in the revival of the old political spirit.

Now, the agrarian crisis and the economic regression
which occurred about 1880 resulted from a factor of
world-wide importance : the appearance of American
wheat in the European markets, where it eliminated'
its competitors, and, consequently, the cereals of Russia.
The falling prices which resulted from this invasion
started the crisis in Russia. The Government of
Alexander III was incapable of remedying the evil by
progressive means ; it could discover no other resource
than regression.

The seigneurial restoration reached its apogee in
1889, in the institution of the zemskie natshalniki
(" chiefs of the soil "), who were functionaries recruited
from the nobility, and invested with administrative and
judicial power over the peasantry. This was, in fact, a
partial return to serfdom.

For the rest, the American invasion of the European
market, and the sudden changes which it occasioned,
were not the only factors of the political and soci.il
reaction which Russia then underwent ; the governing
classes must also be held responsible. The spirit
caste had warped the work of reformation under

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 161

Alexander II ; the directing circles had limited the
Europeanization of Russia by clinging as far as possible
to the old order of things.

It is a singular fact that they themselves went to
Europe for their ideas. For example, they quoted in
favour of the re-establishment of corporal punishment
an English peer who, so they claimed, had declared
that humanity could be perfected only by means of
the rod. The celebrated Pobiedonostzev, opposing the
jury system, invoked the testimony of European experts
(English in particular), who were opposed to this M un-
happy institution." As for their measures against the
Press, the Russian reactionaries sought for precedents
in the France of Napoleon III and the statutes of his
censorship.

The Germans were no strangers to the doings of
the reaction which occurred toward the end of the
nineteenth century. To please the Conservatives, the
Government placed at the head of the Ministry of
Justice a Baltic Junker of the Protestant faith — Count
Palen — whose appointment, according to another well-
known Conservative, Meshtshersky, " was intended as
a corrective of the excess of Liberalism occasioned
by the new judicial institutions." Sometimes the
Germans remained behind the scenes ; such was the
case with the Tsar's aide-de-camp, General Griinwald,
who occupied the modest post of Master of the Imperial
Stud, but who opposed a powerful resistance to the
reformation of the Russian Army (he was opposed to
general and obligatory military service, which, mingling
young men of education with the simple sons of the
soil, might have served to enlighten them) ; and he
helped to introduce into Russia the classical school,
disciplined in the Prussian manner. Somewhat later
the talent for organization displayed by the Germans —
but in the service of reaction rather than in that of
revolution — was brilliantly exemplified in the person of
Count Plehve, who was killed by the Terrorists after he
had employed his police to terrorize the whole Empire.

11

CHAPTER V

I. The problem of national representation under Alexander II and the
constitutional movement. II. The Duma — Foreign elements in
the representative system in Russia — Is the political mentality of
the Russian people Asiatic or European ? III. Some documents.

I
Despite all their imperfections, which were aggravated
by subsequent remodelling, the institutions created
during the " Period of Great Reforms " constituted a
considerable advance. But their operation, and their
existence even, were extremely precarious. We might
in this connection cite the opinion of a Russian Con-
servative, who, when certain innovations were being
discussed, declared them to be incompatible with the
basic principle of the Russian system — that is, the auto-
cratic power. He was right, and the more improvements
were involved by the new state of things, and the more
44 Europeanism," the more profound, necessarily, was
the hostility between them and the ancien regime.
M. Guessen, the historian of the judicial reformation,
makes this remark. He considers that the new justice,
from the first days of its introduction into Russia,
44 entered into the organism of the State like a foreign
body, which, according to the general law of physiology,
must be assimilated or eliminated." One might say as
much of the other great reforms of Alexander II, and
of local self-government in particular.

The imminence of a conflict between the organs
which had just been created and the old central power
was obvious from the time of their appearance. Also,
the reactionaries protested against the reforms, while

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 163

the Radicals and Liberals demanded their complement :
they believed that it was indispensable " to crown the
edifice " — that is, to reconstruct the State on constitu-
tional principles. Immediately the zemstvos were
created, several of these assemblies in various Govern-
ments of Russia presented addresses to the Tsar in
which they expressed their desire to obtain the " crown-
ing of the work." The secret political societies
published proclamations in favour of the Constitution.
And as the Government, far from giving way, increased
its measures of repression, the movement of liberation
assumed the morbid form of Terrorism.

The Terrorist agitation became particularly active
after the war of 1877-78, which contributed to the
political preoccupations of the Russian people and
greatly irritated the more advanced spirits against the
governmental system. For them it was not admissible
that the Russian people, the liberator of the Balkan
Slavs, could be unworthy of the parliamentary system
conceded to their liberated brethren. M. A. Leroy-
Beaulieu, who had occasion to study on the spot the
spirit prevailing in Russian society after the war against
Turkey, describes it in the following words : —

M It is painful to the Russians to remain politically
inferior to the other States of Europe, almost all o'f
which are to-day provided with Constitutions ; inferior
even to their younger brothers of the Balkans, who
are still minors, and were emancipated only yesterday.
. . . Many Russians find it difficult to grasp the very
serious reasons which render a liberal development more
difficult in the great Empire of the North than in these
lesser States, which were liberated by the Russian arms.
Their eyes are offended by a contrast which the years
will but render more sensible and more revolting." '

The Government, which was not ignorant of

these considerations, remained, however, immovable.

Alexander II avowed that he saw nothing to object

to in the constitutional system, but added that he

■ A. Leroy-Beaulicu, L Empire des Tsars, vol. ii. p. 581.

164 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

refused to assume the responsibility of introducing it
into Russia. But he thereby burdened himself with
a far heavier responsibility : that of depriving the
people of its sole lawful means of expressing its will.
And he became the victim of his own inconsequence,
and of the violent struggle which the reformers, whose
aspirations were awakened at the beginning of his
reign, undertook against the return of the reaction.

It was a singular thing that the hesitations of
Alexander II were provoked by the example of the
French Revolution, whose lessons the Emperor did not
sufficiently comprehend. Some weeks before his tragic
death his ministers wished him to convoke a consulta-
tive assembly of Russian representatives. Alexander II
replied to them : " Gentlemen, what is proposed to
us is the assembly of notables of Louis XVI . We must
not forget what followed." And " he postponed for
some week's the publication of the Act on which
depended the future of the Empire and his own
existence." *

M. Leroy-Beaulieu recalls in this connection that
Louis XVI also had shuffled and hesitated.

We must not, however, attribute to the ministers
of Alexander II a foresight superior to his own. His
Prime Minister, Loris-Melikov, in a report dated the
28th January 1881, denied the possibility of repre-
sentative government in Russia.

" Russia cannot accommodate herself to a national
representation invested with forms borrowed from the
West. These forms are not only foreign to the Russian
people, but might even shatter all the foundations of
its political conceptions, and occasion a complete
upheaval of ideas, of which it would be difficult to
foresee the consequences. Similarly, we regard as
inopportune the propositions advanced by certain of
the supporters of the ancient forms of the Russian
State, to create in Russia a Zemskaia Douma, or a
Zemskii Sobor. Our period is so far removed from
■ A. Leroy-Beaulieu, op. cit., vol. ii. p. 509.

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 165

that in which this ancient method of representation
existed . . . that it would be difficult merely to
resuscitate it. In any case it would be a dangerous
attempt to return to the past." ■

It goes without saying that to remain at a dead
stop, without advancing toward Europeanization nor
returning to national representation practised in
Muscovite Russia, was a solution even less practical
than resignation to the boldest Constitution.

II

After the violent death of Alexander II, those who
governed, with the new Emperor at their head, discussed
the question left in suspense by the defunct Tsar.
Alexander III adopted the advice of Pobiedonostzev,
his friend, who pronounced himself as absolutely
opposed to any constitutional regime, and advised the
Tsar not to add a central " debating society " to the
local " debating societies," which, according to him,
already existed, in the shape of the zemstvos, juries,
etc. Instead of a national representation, even of the
consultative type, Russia was subjected from that
moment to a government by autocracy and the police,
which was more and more accentuated as time went
on ; and not until a quarter of a century later were
realized, very imperfectly, those ideas of parliamentary
government which had penetrated Russia from Europe
at the beginning of the century.

I will not here go into the European origins of
the charter published on 17/30 October 1905, and
known as the " Manifesto concerning Liberties." I will
confine myself to drawing the reader's attention to
the fact that the worst aspects of the " Constitution "
at present existing in Russia are modelled upon the
example of Prussia. Such is the system of the
electoral " wards," which divide the electors into classes,
like so many horses put into isolated stalls in a stable.

1 S. Svatikov, The Social Movement in Russia, 1700-190$ (Russian
ed.), Rostov on the Don, 1905, pp. 129-30.

166 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

It is the same system as that on which the Prussian
Landtag is based.

One might establish yet other points of resemblance
between the representative system of Russia and
that of Prussia, which are at the same time points
of dissimilarity between the Russian constitutional
legislation and the true parliamentary system of
Western Europe. None the less, in spite of all its
defects, the system of national representation which has
been operating in Russia since 1906 — with too many
interruptions and dissolutions, it is true — has played a
great part in the political evolution of the country.

The principal distinction between the European State
and an Asiatic despotism is that in the former the
population has the possibility of expressing its desires
and its will, while in the latter it is destined to
obligatory silence. Before the year 1905 the Russian
people had not the right of speech. A long time ago
a Russian Senator defined the principal character of the
political life of Russia as dumbness.

" The Russian people is dumb," said the Senator,
44 and has no power of reaction against abuses."

The revolutionary movement of 1905 and the
convocation of the Duma in 1906 established a line
of demarcation between this ancient speechless Russia
and the new Russia which can speak and dares to do
so. And immediately after the introduction of national
representation in Russia it became apparent that the
popular masses of Russia were far more conscious and
better prepared for constitutional government than was
supposed.

Ill

When the independent Press insisted on the necessity
of establishing a constitutional regime in Russia, the
reactionaries always objected that the demands for
reforms did not emanate from the people, but were
an artificial product conceived in the brains of the
intellectuals, who were alien to the people. The people

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 167

itself — asserted the reactionaries — had no thought of
any modification of the political system, and had no
organic need which corresponded with the constitu-
tional demands.

The beginnings of the Duma gave the lie to these
assertions in a striking fashion. In proof of this I
will here quote some documents which have hitherto
been very little known to the European public, but
which have a great significance for those who wish
to study the political mentality of the popular masses
in Russia, and to solve for themselves the question
whether this mentality is of a barbarous and Asiatic
character, or whether, on the contrary, it is European
and progressive.

These documents are the nakazy, concerning which
I have already published a few passages in the English
Press.1

Just as in France in 1789, at the elections to the
States-General, the populace drew up the famous cahiers,
in which it set out its needs and troubles and gave
hints to its representatives, so in 1906 and 1907,
at the elections to the first two Dumas, the population
of the Russian Empire presented its deputies with
" grievances " or nakazy, in which it indicated the causes
and the details of its discontent, and formulated its
various economic and political desires.

While painting a gloomy picture of the condition
of the country, the democratic electors pressed upon
their representatives in the Duma demands for those
changes which they considered necessary, at the same
time indicating the manner in which these demands
should be realized.

The drafting and presentation of the nakazy was no
easy matter, and not without danger for the electors.
Although the Government had summoned the popula-
tion of the country to elect representatives, at the same
time it directed all its efforts toward rendering it im-
possible for these representatives to express the genuine
■ See Darkest Russia, 1913 (September, October).

168 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

will of their electors, and toward preventing any per-
manent and living connection between the constituencies
and the deputies. . " Untrustworthy " citizens who had
been guilty of drawing up or signing a nakaz to their
deputy were everywhere subjected to searches by the
police, followed by acts of persecution. When, on the
dispersion of the second Duma, searches were made at
the residences of the deputies of the Left, the gendarmes
and agents of the Okhrana were particularly zealous in
ferreting out nakazy, letters, and complimentary
addresses from electors.

The receipt of such communications figured as the
chief count in the indictment of the Labour members
of the second Duma. In the demand for the surrender
of fifty-five Social Democratic deputies presented by
the late M. Stolypin to the second Duma, these deputies
were charged with having " received nakazy from troop
units of the Vilna and Petersburg garrisons," and with
having " collected the revolutionary demands of the
poorer classes of the population."

But in spite of prohibitions and persecutions the
electors were eager to communicate with their deputies.
The deputies of the Left in the first two Dumas were
overwhelmed by telegrams, letters, greetings, and man-
dates from every corner of the country, and from the
most varied elements of the population. From the
Northern Dvina and the Caucasus, from the Baltic and
the Urals, from the shores of the Volga and from distant
Siberia, from the village peasant and the city prole-
tarian, from the artisan and the clerk, from the political
exile and the Cossack of the Don, from the soldier and
the sailor — from every quarter expressions of the popular
desires and demands were showered upon the Duma.
These were the genuine and authentic voice of the
popular masses themselves.

The nakazy contained a very severe criticism of the
state of affairs created in Russia by the inertia and
malevolence of the bureaucracy and the egoism of the
aristocracy.

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 169

" Arbitrariness and violence have reached their
highest pitch," declares the mandate of the employees
at Duig's factory in Petersburg.

Here are some examples of the contents of these
nakazy.

The peasants of the canton of Kiinsk, in the Govern-
ment of Novgorod, complain : —

" The condition of the lower classes has become
unbearable. Everywhere . . . the hovering phantom
of death is seen. The plunder of the people's money
and the abuse of authority on the part of officialdom
has attained terrifying proportions."

Especially bad was the condition of the peasantry.

A memorial to the second Duma from the subordinate
employees of the Nicolas Railway (Petersburg-Mos-
cow) thus describes the treatment of the peasants by
the landowners : —

" You look upon the peasant as something worse than
a useless dog, to whom one throws a gnawed crust
of bread so that it shall not growl and go mad with
hunger. There only remains one thing that you want —
to restore serfdom, your former joy. But the people have
not forgotten the old song. It is difficult to catch a
bird once released from its cage."

The peasants, when secretly communicating with their
representatives in the Duma, connect the ruin of the
villages with the general condition of the country, and
find the source of their calamities in the autocratic and
bureaucratic regime. In their mandate to the deputies
for the Kuban province the peasants and workmen of
one of its districts write : —

" You know, of course, without any reminder from
us, that the whole of Russia is languishing under the
yoke of an autocracy that has outlived itself. She is
suffering from the arbitrariness of officials who rob the
Treasury, who have disgraced Russia by an unfortunate
war, who have ruined the country by unbearable taxes
and imposts, and who have purposely kept the whole
people in ignorance and slavery. You know that the

170 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

whole of Russia has been turned into a conquered
country, with field courts-martial, martial law, extra-
ordinary and increased Okhrana—a. country where hun-
dreds and thousands of men are butchered, shot, hanged,
imprisoned, and sent to penal servitude, and where a
simple mortal can invoke no laws whatever for safe-
guarding his honour and property."

The workmen of a brickyard in the Caucasus con-
clude their mandate by complaining : —

" In the absence of liberty of association we are
compelled to gather secretly late at night in a half-
lighted hut in order to draw up a mandate to our
deputies."

The workmen of the village of Novoselki, in the
Government of Vladimir, make a pitiful appeal to their
representatives : —

" Try, in the Duma, to obtain rights for the oppressed
and the downtrodden. Do not forget that far away,
in a damp basement, something blaek and grimy is
creeping about. The rays of the sun can hardly pene-
trate thither. Stretch out, therefore, a helping hand to
your brethren."

While painting the condition of the country in sombre
colours, the democratic electors pressed upon their
representatives demands for those reforms which they
considered necessary, at the same time indicating the
manner in which those demands should be realized.

The first and most urgent demand expressed in the
mandates was for an amnesty for political exiles and
prisoners, for the release of these champions of the
people's liberty from their living tombs. " We demand
an amnesty for our fathers and brothers who have
fought for the people's cause . . . for all those who
have suffered for their political convictions. ..." The
inmates of the Morshansk prison pointed out to the
members of the Duma that they owed their election,
and the very existence of the Duma, to the fighters for
liberty. . . . The amnesty must be complete and
general. All those regarded by the Government as

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 171

" political criminals " must be liberated without any
restrictions.

The electors of the town of Kustanay, in the province
of Turgay, declare, in their mandate : —

" There must be an amnesty, because the men who are
now languishing in prison and in exile have been en-
deavouring, by spreading the truth, to enlighten the
ignorant people, to throw off the yoke of slavery from
their shoulders, and to lead them toward a bright future,
when the kingdom of God will be established upon earth
—the kingdom of liberty, equality, and fraternity. They
are men who keep firmly in mind the commandment of
Christ to love one's neighbour as oneself. Such men
should receive gratitude and appreciation, instead of
being persecuted and allowed to rot in prison."

In these mandates the amnesty is regarded not as
an act of grace or pardon but as the lawful right of
men suffering from the arbitrary lawlessness of a
despotic reaction, and it is claimed that this right
should be recognized and realized through the Legis-
lature. As the workers of Archangel put it : —

" Demand an amnesty in all political and religious
cases — as a legislative measure — a full amnesty, not as
an act of grace . . . but as a restoration of rights and
liberties which have unlawfully been taken away, and
see that it is extended to all those who have been
judicially condemned or persecuted administratively for
having fought against the Government."

Other nakazy demand that the amnestied prisoners
shall receive " temporary material provision," or be
restored to their homes at the expense of the State.

" An amnesty and the abolition of capital punish-
ment is the cry which issues from the breast " of the
democratic electors of Odessa. Indeed, it was obvious
from the mandates that this demand was the unanimous
cry of the whole country. Among the thousands of
mandates, greetings, and letters received by the deputies
there was not one that did not contain this claim. An
amnesty was regarded by the people as the indispensable

172 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

preliminary of the political and social renovation of the
country.

The workers of the Ural demand " the prosecution
of the Minister of the Interior and other officials for
infringing the Manifesto of October 30th, which granted
the people inviolability of the person, liberty of con-
science and of speech and of the Press, and which
declared that no enactment should have the force of law
without the sanction of the Duma."

A mandate from the Kuban province requires " the
immediate dismissal of all Government authorities, who
should be replaced by officials elected on the basis of a
universal, direct, equal, and secret ballot." A mandate
from the Government of Vladimir demanded the abolition
of all class restrictions on the person and property of
the peasants, as well as of all payments and burdens
arising from class differentiation. . The

peasantry," affirm the Simbirsk peasants, " must be
equalized in their rights with all other classes. The
State must only consider the personal merits and
capacities of its citizens, without reference to their
origin."

" We demand the total abolition of classes. Let
there be neither peasants nor burghers nor noblemen, but
only Russian citizens," say the working men of Shuya.

Great importance is attributed to financial reform,
including a radical change in the system of taxation.
Indirect taxes should be replaced by a progressive
income-tax. (In mandates from Petersburg, Kertsh,
Archangel, Vladimir, Turgay, and elsewhere.)

Next comes a demand for the reform of local self-
government, now in the hands of the upper classes.

11 We demand that all local self-government bodies,
whether urban or rural, shall be elected by secret ballot
on a universal, equal, and direct franchise, so that the
zemstvos and town councils shall no longer serve exclu-
sively the interests of the rich, but shall administer to
the needs of the whole population " (mandates from
Archangel, Nijni Novgorod, Kiev, etc.).

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 173

Perhaps in no other country is the Church in greater
subjection to the State than in Russia, where the clergy
have become the administrative and police agents of the
autocracy. The mandates demand the separation of
Church and State, complete religious toleration, and the
autonomy of the various denominations. The mandate
of the Mussulman inhabitants of Petropavlovsk demandis
that " the ordinances of the Shariat, which regulate the
entire religious, political, civil, and domestic life of the
Mussulmans, shall be secure from violation by the
Government. This demand is not only printed on paper,
but is written in the hearts of our deputies."

As to the national question, not a single note of
chauvinism is to be met with in any of the mandates.

Full equality of rights for all1 the nations inhabiting
Russia and complete liberty of development — such is
the claim of the democracy. Some of the mandates
even go so far as to advocate the federative principle.

" We demand," runs a mandate from the Turgay
province, " the autonomy of the provinces and com-
munities, both urban and rural ; the widest possible
application of the federative principle in the mutual
relations of the various nationalities ; and the recog-
nition of their absolute right to self-organization and
proportional representation."

The mandates reflect in striking fashion the hostile
attitude of the Russian democracy toward the Govern-
ment's anti-Semitic policy. The workmen of the
.Vladimir Government demand " the committal for trial
of all the pogrom executioners and their expulsion from
the Duma."

Another illustration of the extreme aversion of demo-
cratic Russia from the pogrom campaign and its authors
may be found in the following congratulatory mandate
sent to the Duma by the Peasants' Assembly of Pokrov-
skaya, in the Government of Samara : —

" We greet the members of the Duma, and wish them
to carry out our mandates. Our greetings do not
extend, however, to Krushevan (who organized the

174 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Kishinev pogrom) and his like, since the free sons of
the Volga can have no sympathy with those who
extinguish the light and the truth."

One of the Government's favourite assertions is that
the Russian revolution was " created by the Jews." A
most interesting reply to this is to be found in the
mandate of the workmen of Albertin, in the Government
of Grodno : —

" The parties of the Right pretend that it is the
Jewish speakers who imbue the people with sedition.
But, as a matter of fact, we have several speakera
created by the Government itself. We can give you
their names, (i) Hunger and cold, which are caused
by the Government ; (2) heavy taxes imposed by the
Government on the necessities of the labourer's and the
peasant's life, while alleviations are granted to squires
and manufacturers."

Complete liberty of education is the watchword of
many mandates.

M In order to control and to squander with impunity
the money of the people, the Government has to keep
the latter in darkness and ignorance, depriving it syste-
matically of education and placing obstacles in the way
of obtaining it. The Government schools, beginning
with the parish schools, aim at killing all aspirations
toward light and liberty."

There is a pathetic ring about the mandate of the
boy apprentices of the Yurevsky works in the Govern-
ment of Kharkov : —

" We, the younger generation of Russia, observing
the ignorance of our grandfathers, do not wish to be
like them. We have the desire and the zeal to learn,
but the bureaucratic system does not give us, the chil-
dren of poor toilers, the chance of developing our
intellectual capacities."

The Russian democracy is well aware that the
development of education and the public consciousness
requires a radical change of political rigime. " At
present," say the peasants and burghers of the Odessa

THE BUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 175

district, "we do not know whether the taxes are
collected from us properly, or how they are spent, or
whether any Government measure is in the interests of
the people or to its detriment. We have much to learn,
and we want to be free to learn it."

The demand for complete political liberty and for
the democratization of the State system is to be found
in all the mandates. " It is time to put an end to blind-
ness, and to untie our hands, for we have outgrown our
swaddling-bands and require no nurse," say the workers
of the Yurevsky works at Altchevskaya .

A large number of mandates call for the restoration
and execution of the Manifesto of October 30, 1905.
This Manifesto, which promised the establishment of
constitutional guarantees, is not regarded as a voluntary
concession on the part of the autocracy, but as the
victorious achievement of the people.

" We demand the promulgation of a law guarantee-
ing all the civic rights and liberties won by the people's
victory on October 30th " (mandate from the Byelozersk
district of the Government of Novgorod).

The establishment of a parliamentary system and a
democratic representation constitutes, according to a
mandate from Ekaterinoslavl, the foremost need of the
country. There should be no other authority than that
appointed by the people, and responsible to its repre-
sentatives, declare the peasants of the Government of
Simbirsk. Ministers must be responsible to the popular
representatives. The Council of State, which "buries
the Bills born in the Duma," ought to be abolished.
The present electoral system should be replaced by
universal suffrage.

The following are some typical complaints : —

" In the present Duma there is no genuine popular
representation."

M Our participation in the elections by no means
implies recognition of the Duma as a genuine organ
of popular representation."

" We are well aware that the present Duma cannot

176 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

be considered a genuine organ of popular representa-
tion."

44 Your first task," declare the electors of Archangel
to their representatives, 44 must be a struggle for full
popular representation, making the Duma not an organ
of agreement with the Government, but a revolutionary
centre for the organization of the masses. You must
open the people's eyes to the fact that the Duma is not
genuinely representative, that it is merely consultative
in character."

But in spite of all this, even the partisans of the
extreme Left understood that the creation of the Duma
constituted a new phase of the history of Russia.

When I was elected deputy for the city of St. Peters-
burg, among the greetings and congratulations I
received on that occasion was one from several revo-
lutionists lying under sentence of death at Samara : —

44 We hail you as a member of the People's Parlia-
ment," they wrote. 44 We shall now boldly ascend the
scaffold, seeing the dawn of a new light."

Here I quote some of those nakazy in which the
electors endeavoured to give the deputies hints as to
the tactics to be followed : —

44 In sending you to the second Duma we do not
cherish the hope that the Government will accede to the
popular demands. Indeed, since the workmen of St.
Petersburg, who, on January 2 2, 1905, bore a petition
to the Tsar, expressing their own needs and those of the
peasantry, were met by a hail of bullets and bayonets,
and since the Government dispersed the first Duma for
giving timid and partial expression to the popular
demands, we have realized that we cannot expect any
amelioration of our condition from the autocratic
Government, .which by its nature is opposed to our
demands. It is our sworn enemy" (mandate from the
Government of Perm).

44 Remember that the whole people is with you. Do
not make any partial concessions to the Right, but
insist on full popular government," write the peasants
of Novo-Kubanskoye\

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE STATE 177

44 Remember," said a mandate from the same pro-
vince, " that the people have sent you, not to petition
Ministers and bow down to them, but to snatch liberty
from them."

" We do not elect deputies for the purpose of drafting
laws which, since they have to pass the Council of
State and the Star Chamber, will never see the light.
No, we have elected you in order that you may fight in
the Taurida Palace for the convocation of a Constituent
Assembly, for land and liberty " (mandate of the
citizens of Tekaterinburg).

The Sebastopol electors beg their deputy " not to
stop half-way in the struggle against autocratic govern-
ment."

The majority of the mandates, like that from
Tekaterinburg, express the opinion that the radical
transformation of the entire political system requires
the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, which alone
can effect pacification and secure liberty ; and for this
purpose the electors offer their support.

44 We are anxious," write the Mussulmans of Petro-
pavlovsk, " to keep in touch with the Duma. It is for
you to organize that connection with us. Let our
thoughts and feelings become those of the Duma ; the
victory will then be sure and final."

44 In the struggle with the Government for the realiza-
tion of the popular demands," say the citizens of Maikop,
44 the Duma must rely on the support of the great masses
of the population who are in sympathy with it."

The peasants of the Syzran district instruct their
deputy as follows : —

44 The first Duma, which rightly championed the
people's needs, has been dissolved because the people
was not sufficiently organized, and could lend no support
to the Duma. We therefore request you to undertake
. . . the organization of the people locally, in order
that at the decisive moment the people may stand up
for the Duma as one man. Only let the Duma explain
the nature of the support needed, so as to avoid mis-.

12

178 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

taken and isolated acts, and the whole of Russia will
stand up for its right to land and liberty, which we
have sent you to obtain for us."

The same idea was still more vigorously expressed
by one of the workingmen's mandates : —

11 We instruct our deputy not to submit to the
demands of the Government, and not to return to us
without having carried out our mandate. If the gang
of torturers of the people should disperse you with
bayonets, then all of us who have elected you will
rise in defence of the deputies struggling for the liberty
and happiness of the people."

Such are the popular desires expressed in the nakazy.
Commenting upon them, an eminent English publicist
remarks : —

" Some of the demands, we recognize, are in advance
of the political and social conditions obtaining even in
the most liberally governed countries of Western
Europe. Their great importance is derived from the
light they throw upon the political development of the
Russian masses. Only a people that has arrived at a
high pitch of self-consciousness could have produced
such documents as these. They constitute a powerful
argument in favour of the full emancipation of the pro-
letariat from the state of semi-serfdom in which it still
exists, and a proof that Russia is now more than ripe
for a Constitution based on democratic principles.
Those who object that the transference of the governing
power into popular hands would result in confusion and
anarchy would do well to study the present rigime in
the provinces, where every official is a law unto himself,
and where clean government, free from tyranny and
corruption, is practically unknown. We have always
had great faith in the Russian people, and are convinced
that, once the deadening influence of the bureaucratic
administration has been shaken off, the true genius of
the country will manifest itself in a manner that will
compel both amazement and admiration."

PART THE FOURTH

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN RUSSIAN
LITERATURE

CHAPTER' I

The theory of races — Non-Russian blood in the veins of Russian
writers. II. The formation of the literary language and its
European ingredients.

I

I AM not a partisan of that theory of races which seeks
to explain the various phenomena of our life by racial
influences, by a remote heredity, and endeavours to
establish a more or less impenetrable barrier between
the various races. This theory is especially inapplic-
able to Russia, whose population is composed of a
great mixture of different races. It will suffice to recall
that the vielikoruss people (the Great Russian people)
is composed of an amalgam of the Slav element and
the Finnish element.

But there is perhaps no more startling proof of the
insufficiency of the theory of races than that which is
afforded by Russian literature, in which representatives
of all the races have collaborated.

A Russo-Polish writer who has interested himself in
this question has established, by a careful inquiry, that
non -Russian blood has often flowed in the veins of
Russian writers.

" By attentively studying the biography of the
Russian writers, one recognizes that a large number
of those who constitute the pride and glory of Russian
literature, a considerable proportion of its lights, its
stars, its leaders, and its ' kings,' are not of Russian
origin ; that they are of mixed blood, that they are not
originally Russian in the precise sense of the word." »

1 S. Librovitch, Non-Russian Blood in the Veins of Russian Writers

(Russian ed., Petrograd).

181

182 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

In support of this assertion the author gives us the
following examples : —

The real creator of the true national poetry of Russia,
the celebrated Alexander Pushkin, had as a maternal
ancestor an Abyssinian negro who married a German
woman ; the child of this strange inter-continental
union was the poet's grandfather. On the paternal
side Pushkin had among his ancestors a Prussian immi-
grant (who entered Russia in the time of Alexander
Nevsky, and who was probably of Slav origin) and
an Italian woman.

Another great Russian poet, Mikhail Lermontov, was
of Scottish origin. In the twelfth century there lived
in Scotland a famous bard, Leirmont or Learmount by
name, who is said to have predicted the destinies of
his country, and who was celebrated by Sir Walter
Scott. A branch of his family emigrated into Poland,
and in 1 61 3 George Leirmont entered the Russian
military service with sixty other Scots and Irishmen,
and busied himself, under the Tsar Alexei Mikhailo-
vitch, reforming the first regiment of regular cavalry
known in Russia.

The poet Lermontov was extremely proud of his
extraction, and referred to it in his verses : —

Why am I not a bird, a crow of the steppes

Which passed just now above me ?

Why can I not hover in the heavens

And love liberty alone ?

Toward the West, toward the West I would direct my rapid

flight :
There blossom the fields of my ancestors,
Where, in an empty castle on the misty mountains,
Repose their forgotten ashes.
On the ancient wall their hereditary buckler
And their rusted sword are suspended.
I would fly above the buckler and the sword
And with my wing unhang them.

I would touch with my wing the string of the Scottish harp,
And the sound would die away in the vaulted roof ;
Heard by one alone and by one alone engendered,
It would die even as it broke the silence.

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 183

Many other Russian writers were of foreign origin.
The first Russian satirist, Prince Kantemir, was the son
of a Moldavian sovereign and a Greek woman. Another
satirist, who was also the great Russian publicist,
Radishtshev, was of Tartar descent.

The father of Russian romantic poetry, Vassili
Jukovsky, had for his mother a Turkish prisoner.
His contemporary Delwig, also a romantic poet,
belonged to a noble German family.

The poet Ogariov, the friend of Herzen, had Tartar
ancestors. Herzen was the illegitimate son of a German
woman and a Russian noble.

The brothers Aksakov, writers and founders of the
Slavophile movement, counted Norwegian kings among
their remote forbears.

The well-known novelist and writer of short stories,
Grigorovitch, was the son of a Frenchwoman, an
emigree .

The parents of Fete, a remarkable lyric poet, were
a German woman and a Russian noble.

The Jewish people has given many poets and
novelists, etc., to Russia ; for example, the poet
Semion Nadson, whose name marks an epoch in the
history of literature.

Among modern writers also we find many who are
not of Russian origin.

The celebrated Leonid Andreev is the son of a Polish
mother. Balmont, the well-known poet, has Scottish
and Scandinavian ancestors on the paternal side, and on
the maternal side Tartars.

This enumeration might be continued. But the facts
here cited are enough to show that what is called race
does not play a decisive part in the formation of literary
genius. What is of importance is the historical and
social milieu in which this genius is evolved ; and in
studying the European influences which have affected
Russian literature we should occupy ourselves not with
anthropological inquiries, but with phenomena of a
different order and significance.

184 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

II

Before speaking of the Western elements introduced
by Russia into her literature, there are a few points to
be considered respecting the influence of Europe in
the formation of the literary language of Russia.

The whole historic evolution of a people is reflected
in its language. It is so with the Russian language,
which presents many highly interesting phenomena in
the province of pure linguistics and also in that of
general history.

The popular language and the literary language of
Russia were very differently formed. In the first are
to be perceived the movement of the population, the
colonization of the great Eastern plain by Slavo-Russ
tribes, and their commerce with other peoples, Mongols,
Finns, Poles, Lithuanians, etc. The three principal
dialects of the Russian language — the Great Russian,
Little Russian, and White Russian (Vielikoruss, Malo-
russ or Ukrainian, and Bieloruss) — retain traces of these
contacts .

As for the literary language, the Great Russian is,
properly speaking, the only Russian to possess such
a thing, for with the White Russians (who inhabit
the country bordering on Lithuania and Poland) litera-
ture is not yet sufficiently developed to possess its
means of expression, and with the Ukrainians, although
they already possess a very rich literature, its instru-
ment of expression is still in process of formation,
and is nearer the popular speech than literary Great
Russian. It is also subject to that same instability
which is so characteristic of the popular tongue ;
so that the writers of the Russian Ukraine em-
ploy an idiom which differs perceptibly from that
of the Ukrainian writers of Bukovina or Galicia
(Ruthenians).

The literary language of the Great Russians has
formed itself upon a stable and well-defined basis.
In this it differs greatly from the popular tongue, which

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 185

is by no means uniform, and is composed of numerous
differing patois.

The formation of the Great Russian literary language
may be divided into three principal phases, two of
which proceed from two distinct external factors. The
first phase begins with the evangelization of Russia ;
it is therefore Bulgar or Graaco-Bulgar in character.
It will be remembered that Russia received Christianity
from Bulgaria, or rather from Macedonia, whence came
also the clergy and the first religious and ecclesiastical
books. The Russian literary language was, in the
beginning, the language of religion, and it is known
by the name of the " Slav Church language." It was
entirely " foreign " to that of the people, and hardly
understood by the latter. But after some time the
second language became diffused into the first, and the
written language approximated to the living popular
speech. However, their resemblance is chiefly phonetic.
In its lexicology and syntax the scholarly language
remained Bulgaro-ecclesiastical. In this language —
Russian by consonance, foreign by inflexion, the con-
struction of words, and the turn of phrases — are written
the first historical chronicles and the first juridical
acts of the principality of Kiev.

After the removal of the capital from Kiev to
Vladimir, and thence to Moscow, an urban language
sprang up, which was distinct from the rural tongue,
and which, as Moscow increased and developed into a
Grand Duchy and a Russian Tsarstvo, became the
language of the State. " The Governmental Chan-
celleries are obliged to speak from Moscow to all
Russia in a comprehensible language. Thus a language
of the Chancellery, simple and precise, which is not
without pictures queness and expressive power ... a
finished and perfected language, which had a chance
of lasting unchanged as long- as the needs and the
mentality of which it was born. . . . But from the
beginning of the nineteenth century all is again un-
settled. The language detaches itself from its quite

186 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

recently constituted basis and moves onward at random,
accumulating, without any discretion, the raw material
of foreign terms and concepts. A moment comes when
Russian writers prefer, not without reason, to have
recourse to foreign languages in order to express them-
selves with sufficient art and precision. After the calm,
the solemnity, and the exactitude of the solid Muscovite
tongue, convulsive efforts are made to represent the
afHux of new thoughts and feelings. The veil of uni-
formity cast over the literature of the sixteenth century
disappears as by enchantment." '

Thus the evolution of the literary language in Russia
corresponds with the general development of the
country. The linguistic invasion of Russia by Europe,
which took place at the beginning of the eighteenth
century, coincides with the first great effort to
Europeanize Russia under Peter I. The two move-
ments do not merely coincide ; they are profoundly
correlated. There is a close connection between the
linguistic imports and the general multiplication of com-
munications between Russia and Europe. Commercial
exchanges brought a host of new terms into the Russian
vocabulary, names of articles of merchandise and the
terms defining transactions. The adoption of European
methods by the Russian Army also necessitated, as
we have seen, the employment of new military terms.
The same thing happened in the case of Govern-
ment institutions : almost all the names of the new
organs and officials (from the Senat to the landrat)
were borrowed from Europe.

It should be noted that even in the days of Peter I
it was realized that these importations ought not to be
mechanical, and Peter I often employed himself by
correcting the translations of foreign books into
Russian.

The Academician A. Chakhmatov states that during
the first half of the eighteenth century " the Russian

1 P. Milukov, Studies in Russian Culture, Part II, p. 176 (Petersburg,
1897).

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 187

tongue was placed in a difficult position by the host
of foreign words which invaded it, coming from the
West in an irresistible stream." « But during the second
half of the century the literary language was already
rapidly assimilating these European importations which
were transforming it. Moreover, at the close of the
eighteenth century Europe was affecting the Russian
language in a different manner to that observed at
the beginning of the century. Under Peter I the
European additions travelled by what we may call
the official path : that of translations commissioned
by the Government, diplomatic documents, etc. Under
Catherine II the Russian writers were spontaneously
delving into the linguistic wealth of Europe, and their
acquisitions were of a different kind. They were not
limited to technical terms, to the vocabularies of trade,
industry, and government ; they even extended to the
expressions which interpret the intellectual phenomena
peculiar to cultivated minds, abstract ideas, and the
movements of the heart and the soul.

Karamzin energetically contributed to this develop-
ment. Leader of the "sentimentalist " school, he could
not find, in the old literary Russian, all that he needed
to depict the inward life of his characters. To remedy
this penury of sentimental interpretation, and also to
build up the vocabulary required for his historical and
philosophical works, he created a great number of
words, proceeding by analogy and following the model
of the Latin tongues. He also " Europeanized "
Russian syntax, introducing more flexible and more
agreeable constructions.

This reorganization of the Russian language met with
considerable resistance on the part of the extremer
nationalists, one of whom (Shishkov) published a violent
protest against the " novelties " imported by Karamzin
and a defence of the M old style." The hostility of
Shishkov and his followers is in part explained by

1 A. Chakhmatov, " The Russian Tongue," in Brockhtus and Efron's
Encyclopaedia, vol. 55 (Petersburg, 1899).

188 RUSSIA] AND EUROPE

the exaggerations which certain of the innovators per-
mitted themselves ; some of them even went so far
as to say that they detested the Russian tongue and
preferred the French. But Karamzin and the best
of the protagonists of ** Europeanization " were in no
way responsible for these extravagances. Karamzin
did not " denaturalize " the literary language ; on the
contrary, he put life into it. Bielinsky, the famous
critic, was perfectly right when he asserted that " before
Karamzin's time no one read, for the little there
was to read was so frightfully heavy."

But Karamzin was obliged to seek for his means of
expression in European literature, and especially in
French literature. When asked how he had accom-
plished this transformation, he replied that " he had
some foreign authors in his mind," and that " he had
in the first place imitated them." But his imitation
was not blind or mechanical ; for, as M. Haumant
observes, he " Russified more or less happily " the
materials (for the most part French) which entered
into the construction of his Russian prose. He could
not therefore be accused of having " denaturalized "
the language of his country ; but he made it fruitful
by means of the powers of expression which he brought
to it from the West.

What Karamzin did for prose, others did for poetry.
" The pains taken by the poetasters of the banks of
the Moskva to achieve the elegance of their colleagues
on the banks of the Seine," says M. Haumant, "were
not entirely fruitless." Those rhymesters of the early
nineteenth century, who had, without exception, learned
in the school of Europe, prepared the way for the
muse of Pushkin, whose style was thus formed upon
the teaching of foreign authors, and whose verse was
the first manifestation — as yet unequalled — of the Russo-
European synthesis in Russian poetry.

Since the days of Karamzin and Pushkin the literary
Russian Language has had the benefit of a solid
foundation for its subsequent development, which hub

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 189

been entirely national and original ; but it will not
forget that much of the material of these foundations
came from Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth
century.

This language was, at the time of its formation,
and is now, the language employed by the world of
thought ; it is alien to the people. The Europeaniza-
tion of the language, like the process of Europeaniza-
tion in general, has not yet touched the masses.
Although the spoken language of the cities is very
close to the written language, the heavy, rustic idiom
in common use among the moujiks is still far
removed from it. But the diffusion of the Press, which
is spreading from the towns into the country, the de-
velopment of political life, and the awakening of the
rural population to intellectual interests and the pro-
gress of popular education are gradually lessening the
difference.

CHAPTER II

I. The literature of the people and the literature of the cultivated
writers — The first Western influences. II. The importation from
Europe of literary forms and subjects.

Foreign influences were plainly perceptible in Russian
literature even in the earliest period, when popular
poetry and oral tradition had their birth. In the early
written literature they were even more perceptible.

The written literature appropriated and absorbed
these foreign influences far more skilfully than did
the popular poetry ; intentional imitation being plainly
perceptible, while in folk-lore the borrowing of foreign
elements was effected unconsciously.

The general origin of foreign inspiration, its source,
and its paths of diffusion, differed considerably in both
literatures. Oral poetry in Russia is often the daughter
of the East, while the written literature draws vitality
from the West ; in the case of the latter Asia gives
way to Europe.

But this change of orientation was gradual. In
its beginnings Russian literature was forced to remain
under the severe discipline of the Byzantine Church
and its ascetic subjects. This quenched the radiance
of poetic imagination. Not until the sixteenth century
and afterwards did the literary influence of the West
hew out a road for itself — a road which was not at
first direct, but which followed a long and roundabout
course.

The first literary intermediaries between Russia and

190

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 191

Europe were the Southern Slavs — Bulgars, Serbs,
and Dalmatians — whose relations with their northern
brothers were facilitated by the common alphabet in-
vented in the ninth century by Saint Cyril, the famous
apostle of the Slavs. Through them European litera-
ture found its way into Russia, and there produced
quite a spiritual revolution. The *•'■ Slavo-Roman "
novels (as the Russian historians and philologists call
them) — that is to say, the Slav version of the various
romances of chivalry (Tristan and Iseult, the Knight
Bova, Attila, the Fair Helen, etc.) made their way
through Russia and gave rise to a new world of ideas
and feelings and sympathies. The exploits and
adventures of knights, the glorification of their heroism,
and other similar subjects which furnished the matter
of the " Slavo-Roman novels," afforded a diversion,
a relaxation, to minds wearied by the monotonous moral
and religious parenetics which for centuries had been
their only mental fare. The legends of France,
Brittany, and Italy, having passed through Serbia and
Dalmatia, reached the Muscovites, in whom they re-
awakened the poetic traditions of the period of Kiev,
with its epic songs (byllny), which had been pitilessly
persecuted and exterminated by the Church. Some
of these productions (for example, the Italian romance
of the Knight Bova) became, and have remained until
our days, the favourite reading of the great masses
of the Russian people.

Love, as a subject, was an especial novelty to the
Russians, who had for so long been subjected to an
ethical system of Byzantine origin, which, in accord-
ance with the teaching of the Church, strove to depict
woman as an " evil being," a " diabolic vessel," while
the story - tellers and poets of the West idealized
her and openly professed the cult of beauty and
of love.

In the seventeenth century it was through her two
most cultivated neighbours — Poland and the Ukraine,
then to a great extent Polish in thought and language

192 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

— that Muscovite Russia received her literary importa-
tions from Europe.

"In Polo-Ukrainian attire they came to us —
Melusina, the gracious fairy, who mysteriously trans-
forms herself into a little snake ; Count Peter of
Provence with his faithful Magellonne ; Prince Bruns-
wig, followed everywhere by his lion ; pairs of lovers,
courageous knights, touching or pathetic visions." »

At the same period Russia became familiar with
the gay scenes of the celebrated humorous writers
in whom the West abounds, the French fabliaux, and
the episodes of Boccaccio's Decameron. This revela-
tion, says Professor Veselovsky, who has made a special
study of European influences in Russian prose and
poetry, " produced a definite alteration in the tastes
and judgments of the reader, by at last setting free
the eternal aspirations, passion, love, laughter, dreams
— all that was oppressed by the doctrine of abstinence
and false modesty."

II

European literature, while it developed the taste of
the Russians, was also a school, in which the foremost
representatives of prose and poetry were glad to study.
Before this period there were only two forms of literary
production : the lietopis — that is, the historical chronicle
— and the religious homily. Europe taught Russia to
employ other forms ; the ode, the drama, the romance.

In the seventeenth century the south-west of Russia
(and Kiev in particular) saw the creation of literary
centres, where writers composed syllabic verses accord-
ing to the rules of pseudo-classicism, and attempted
to build up dramas of a sort. An embryo theatre
even was established, organized by the students of
the ecclesiastical colleges of the Ukraine. At the same
time, society for the first time made the acquaintance
of the periodical newspaper. It is true that the first

* Alexis Veselovsky, Western Influence in Modern Russian Literature,
and ed. (Moscow, 1896), p. 24.

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 193

Russian newspaper was founded very much later, at
the beginning of the eighteenth century, in fact, but
in the seventeenth century the Government caused foreign
newspapers to be translated into Russian.

From the beginning of the eighteenth century the
literature of the West had a direct effect upon Russia,
independent of Poland as an intermediary. Russian
writers began to come into immediate contact with
their European masters.

The first Russian satirist, Prince Antioch Kantemir,
who attacked ignorance and glorified knowledge, main-
tained personal relations with Montesquieu, Voltaire,
and others. It is obvious that he found inspiration in
Boileau, for he repeats almost word for word the famous
avowal that " the word, in order that it may delight
the reader, has often cost the author tears." ¥ He
laughs in his verses," says Kantemir, " but in his heart
he weeps over unprincipled men." He also imitated
La Bruyere, Mathurin R£gnier, and Voltaire.

Another Russian poet of the first half of the
eighteenth century, Vassili Tretiakovsky, learned the
poetic art abroad. He travelled in Holland and in
France, and attended lectures at the University of Paris.
Lacking money, he had to go afoot for a great part
of the journey to Paris. He said of this city that
" only a man whose soul is bestial can fail to love
this beautiful spot, these beloved banks of the Seine."
The poetical talent of Tretiakovsky was not very re-
markable (he wrote better verses in French than in
Russian), but he was the true pioneer of Russian versifi-
cation. By comparing it with French versification he
convinced himself that Russian versification must be
based upon the tonic and not on the syllabic principle.
Thanks to the revolution which he effected, Russian
poetry was able to develop freely, liberated from the
conventional rules of Latin or syllabic versification.

Another lyric poet, Bogdanovitch, the immediate pre-
cursor of Pushkin J[he wrote late in the eighteenth
century), was also a pupil of the French. The sub-

13

194 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

ject of his romance Dushenka is borrowed from La
Fontaine's Psyche. He also translated poems by,
Marmontel, Voltaire, etc.

Tragedy too was an importation from Europe.
The pioneer in this department of letters, Sumarokov
(1717-77), was known as "the Russian Racine," and
he certainly attempted to imitate Racine — and also
Voltaire. He even wrote a poem in glorification of
these two poets and Moliere, in which he expressed
the conviction that " Moliere's Tartu fe will not be
forgotten so long as the world endures." Sumarokov
was also the founder of Russian journalism ; he estab-
lished a monthly review, the forerunner of the periodical
publications of the close of the eighteenth century.
These early examples of Russian journalism were still
imitations of European journals ; they were merely
copies of the English Spectator and other publications
of the kind. All the Russian contemporaries of the
Spectator were full of translations and adaptations of
articles appearing in the Spectator. In this connec-
tion we may mention that the form of the Vision of
Mirza, a poem by the celebrated writer of odes,
Derjavin (1743-18 16), was taken from the allegorical
poem by Addison, published, under the same title, in
the Spectator.

At the same period two other forms of literature
were developed in Russia : the comedy and the fable.
In these, again, the Russian authors, even the most
independent and the most truly national, were merely
the docile disciples of Europe. In this connection the
evolution of talent in the well-known fabulist Krylov is
extremely interesting. He began by writing tragedies,
following the rules of the French classics. Then he
wrote comic operas and comedies, in which he
borrowed from Moliere, Beaumarchais, and other French
writers. Krylov 's comedy A Lesson for Young Women
is word for word a reproduction of Les Pricieuses
Ridicules. When Krylov finally devoted himself exclu-
sively to the fables which made him famous not only

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 195

in Russia but throughout the world, he was still follow-
ing in the footsteps of his Greek and French originals.
The French biographer of Krylov, M. Fleury, and a
number of Russian critics have demonstrated that
Krylov imitated La Fontaine and remained an adapter
even in those fables which he professed to regard as
original and which seemed to bear all the marks of
invention.

As for the comic writers, the two best known at the
end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nine-
teenth century were Count Kapnist and Fonvizin. In
Kapnist's well-known comedy Tabeda (Trickery), which
vigorously attacks the venal and inequitable justice of
Russia, we find traces of the Misanthrope of Mo here,
and one of the principal characters in this comedy is
almost the twin brother of Alceste. Fonvizin, the father
of Russian comedy, and indeed of the Russian theatre,
presents a still more curious example of Western influ-
ence. Fonvizin was a militant opponent of " Gallo-
mania " — that is, the excessive admiration professed by
Russian society for French literature, French ideas,
French manners. Nevertheless, he himself, in his
comedies, " subjected French authors to a devastating
invasion" (in the words of M. Veselovsky), taking
from them whatever he could. He plundered Duclos,
La Bruyere, Voltaire, La Rochefoucauld, etc., and even
went to the length of actual plagiarism. .What is
more, the very comedy in which he strikes his shrewdest
blows at " Gallomania " — his Ivanushka — is by no
means an original and national work, but a mere adapta-
tion of a comedy by Holberg, the Danish author of
Jean of France, the hero of which was a young Dane
who was over-Gallicized. Fonvizin did not even change
the name of the leading character, but merely trans-
lated it, Ivanushka being the diminutive of Ivan or
John or Jean.

To close this examination of the origins of the various
forms and departments of Russian literature, we must
not omit to mention what in Russia is known as

196 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

" publicist " literature, that is, the literature of political
and social propaganda, which plays an enormous part
in Russian life. This species of literature made its
first appearance at the end of the nineteenth century,
and its first memorable example was the Voyage from
Petersburg to Moscow by Radishtshev. This " book,
which suffered greatly " (like its author), which was
placed on the Index by the Russian Government, and
was prohibited for a term of a hundred years ( I ), con-
tained a fiery and audacious protest against the horrors
of despotic rule and of serfdom. A piece of noble
audacity, it proceeded directly from two foreign books :
Sterne's Sentimental Journey through France and Italy
(1796), and the Philosophical and Political History of
European Trade and Settlements in the East and W^est
Indies (The Hague, 1774). To the English author
Radishtshev owes the outward form of his work and a
whole series of episodes ; to the French author, the
condemnation of Indian slavery, to which Russian serf-
dom bore a great resemblance.

It is thus clearly proved that the most celebrated
monuments of eighteenth century Russian literature are
the offspring of European literature — and of French
literature especially ; and that the principal literary
forms and models reached us from the West. The
eighteenth century was for Russian writers the didactic
century, during which they were shaping themselves
in the school of Europe.

The two first decades of the nineteenth century also
belong to this period. The best Russian novelist of
this period, Karamzin, found the type of his sentimental
romances in Rousseau {La Nouvelle Heloise) and
Goethe (W.erther). The best-known poet of this period,
Jukovsky, wrote ballads modelled on those of Burger
and other German romantics, and elegies in imitation
of European poets.

It was only towards the end of the second half of
the nineteenth century that the mighty trio arose —
Pushkin, Lermontov, and Gogol — and Russian literature

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 197

weaned itself from its parent, and began to lead a truly
independent and national existence. Not that it was
thenceforth closed to all foreign suggestion. The genial
creations of Pushkin, Lermontov, and Gogol, like those
of their predecessors, were matured by the beneficent
warmth diffused by the literature of the West. But
mechanical and explicit reproduction was replaced by
an organic appropriation and a national transformation
of international ideas and expressions.

Russian literature still keeps its eyes fixed upon
Europe ; perhaps more steadily than of old ; but it
no longer follows in another's wake, like a vessel under
tow ; it moves upon its own course.

CHAPTER III

I. Various European influences in Russian literature — Classicism,
sentimentalism, and romanticism — Shakespeare in Russia. II.
Russian realism. III. Byronism in Russia — Dostoievsky's opinion
of Byronism.

My readers will understand that European influence
in Russian literature is not confined to the formal side
of the latter — to the language and the different creative
forms. It has also affected the spirit of literary pro-
duction in Russia, and all the principal " movements "
of European literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries will be found in Russian literature, from classi-
cism to symbolism (or even, if you will, to futurism 1).

The literary movements of Western Europe find their
way into Russia, and there undergo transformation.
Some of them strike only very feeble roots into Russian
soil ; others, on the contrary, become thoroughly
acclimatized and yield remarkable fruit.

A French historian, M. Andre* Lirondelle (Professor
in the University of Lille), published some three years
ago a very interesting work on Shakespeare in Russia.
This volume, which is a true literary incarnation of
the Anglo-Franco-Russian alliance (the work of a
French scholar investigating the influence upon Russian
literature of a great English writer I), affords us excellent
concrete material for the formation of an exact idea
as to the general character and the relative power of
the various literary movements in Russia.

The Russians made their first acquaintance with
Shakespeare perhaps in the seventeenth century. But

198

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 199

this first acquaintance was neither extensive nor pro-
found, and down to the end of the following century
the influence of Shakespeare was small in the extreme.
This will be readily understood, for the eighteenth
century was an age of classicism. Even at the begin-
ning of this century, a well-known Russian writer —
Feofan Prokopovitch — gave evidence of "a classic
temperament," and derided the liberties taken by the
Russian imitators of the Jesuit dramas : M The Tsars,
on their stage, utter imbecilities ; they weep like women
and speak like artisans," he indignantly complains. A
historian of Russian literature, citing this remark, con-
cludes with justice : " With such ideas Feofan would
certainly have criticized Shakespeare and exalted
Corneille and Racine." *■

During the whole of the eighteenth century the
literary influence of France became more firmly estab-
lished in Russia, and the influence of classicism increased
simultaneously. And it was through the medium of
his French translators and critics that Shakespeare made
his way into Russian literature. He was a " Frenchi-
fied " Shakespeare. But he nevertheless helped to
weaken the influence of French classicism, because, as
M. Lirondelle very justly remarks, the Russian tempera-
ment itself was an aid to the diffusion of the Shake-
spearian influence. The propaganda of the new German
school of drama (that of Lessing) was also of assistance.
The protest of this school against the narrowness of
the classic school was bound to be extremely effective
in Russia. *' To speak of the abrogation of rules,
to recommend simplicity and what is natural, was to
gain one's cause beforehand with minds impatient of
constraint." 2

However, we must not exaggerate the extent of the
anti-classical reaction which took place in the time
of Catherine II. The liberation from the rules of the
classical drama was only formal and external. As

1 Andre Lirondelle, Shakespeare en Russie, pp. 14-15 (Paris, 1912).
3 Ibid. p. 32.

200 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

for the true Shakespearian spirit, it was still unknown
to the Russian literature of that period. The best
proofs of this statement are the dramatic works of
Catherine II, who renounced the " three unities " of
classicism and imitated Shakespeare in the construction
of her historic dramas, but was at the same time anxious
that history and the reality " should not be too dis-
agreeable." In her " imitations " of Shakespeare
Catherine misrepresented him rather than imitated him,
and the most original of Shakespeare's types suffer,
at her hands, metamorphoses which are utterly in-
credible. For example, in one of her plays " Falstaff,
a Flemish drunkard," the whale with belly swollen
with tuns of oil that is cast ashore at .Windsor, has
become an elegant coxcomb, always dressed, shod, and
barbered in the latest fashion. Considerations of a
political order entered into literature. Catherine elimi-
nated from her imitations of Shakespeare every really
popular or democratic element. In " a free adaptation "
of Timon of Athens she suppressed, for example, all
mention of the Greek democracy and its political con-
flicts.

The age of Catherine was too deeply steeped in
" enlightened despotism " and false classicism to adopt
the robust and popular realism of Shakespeare. These
are the words in which a Russian review, in 1769,
expressed the prevailing opinion of Shakespeare : —

M Shakespeare, that old tragedian, still adored by
the English, had thoughts of a very lofty order, and
was witty and scholarly, but wayward, and his taste
was bad. All his tragedies have now become curious
farces, in which the characters are described and inter-
mingled without selection. In his Julius Ccesar,
pleasantries which would be natural to coarse Roman
artisans are introduced into the very important scene
between Brutus and Cassius."

This was written in 1769. Twenty years had not
elapsed when a very different opinion was expressed.
Karamzin, the leader of the " sentimentalist " movement,

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 201

published in 1787 a translation of Julius Ccesar, and
in the preface to his translation he speaks of Shake-
speare as follows : —

" Few writers have penetrated human nature so pro-
foundly as Shakespeare ; few have known so intimately
as this astonishing artist all the most secret forces of
man, his most hidden motives, the individuality of every
passion, of every temperament, of every manner of life.
All his magnificent pictures directly imitate nature ;
all the changing lights of these pictures astonish those
who examine them attentively ; in his work every class
of mankind, every age, every passion, and every
character speaks its own language. For every thought
he finds an image, for every feeling an expression,
for every movement of the soul the best interpretation."

Karamzin defends Shakespeare against the attacks
of " the celebrated sophist Voltaire " (sic), who " strove
to prove that Shakespeare was an indifferent author,
full of great and numerous defects," and who held that
the tragedies of Shakespeare were " tragico-lyrico-
pastoral farces, without plan, without unity, with no
connection between one scene and the next ; a dis-
agreeable mixture of the base and the sublime."
Karamzin explains Voltaire's opinion by personal motives
— and asserts that M being indebted to Shakespeare for
the best elements of his tragedy, Voltaire feared to
praise Shakespeare lest he should thereby abase him-
self."

"rThat Shakespeare did not observe the rules of
the theatre is true," continues Karamzin. " The real
cause of this non-observance was, I believe, his ardent
imagination, which could not subdue itself to any pre-
scribed rule. His mind soared like an eagle, and
could not measure its flight by the measure of a sparrow.
. . . He did not wish to confine his imagination within
limits ; he considered nature only, caring for nothing
else. ... His genius, like the genius of nature, em-
braced the sun and the atoms in its gaze."

But although the Russian " sentimentalists " were

202 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

better able to appreciate Shakespeare than the repre-
sentatives of pseudo-classicism, they were as yet unable
to grasp the real meaning of " Shakespearism." The
violent passions of Shakespeare's heroes and his brutal
realism were too much for the tender sentimentalists.
One experiences a very curious impression on observing
their endeavours to discover " melancholy " in Shake-
speare, and on reading their, lamentations over the
shocking attitude of his buffoons, who offend our sensi-
tive M melancholies " by their noisy cries and vulgar
pleasantries.

The writers of the romantic period, which in Russia,
as everywhere, followed the period of sentimentalism,
seek to exploit Shakespeare to the advantage of their
own literary school. Russian romantic poetry was
strongly influenced by its German sister, and followed
the latter in its preference for the fantastic and
mysterious. And these are the qualities which our
romantic poets discover in Shakespeare, while his realism
offends them almost as greatly as it revolted our senti-
mentalists. For example, the leader of the romantic
school in Russia, Jukovsky, " is fascinated by the
terrifying scenes of Macbeth, the fantastic witches, the
monologue which precedes the crime, the somnambulism
of Lady Macbeth." But " the pleasantries of Shake-
speare strike him as lacking in refinement." • Never-
theless, Shakespeare is officially classified by the
romantic critics and philosophers of Russia as among
the romantic poets, and his works " were the subject
of many great debates in our ' philosophical clubs *
of the years 1830-40." The youthful members of
these clubs (of which I shall speak presently) drew
upon the Shakespearian drama for material to illustrate
the abstract ideas of their masters, the German philo-
sophers (Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel).

But at this same period Pushkin — first of all the
Russian writers — attained to a thorough understanding
and a just appreciation of Shakespeare, and expressed
' A. Lirondelle, op. cit. p. 128.

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 203

the opinion that the popular laVs of the English drama
were better suited to the Russian theatre than the
" courtly tradition " of the school of Racine. And in
his historical drama Boris Godunov Pushkin faithfully
observed the laws of the Shakespearian drama. Boris
Godunov became the starting-point of the new dramatic
art and of the new Russian literature in general ; the
watchword of the latter being realism.

II

All who are acquainted with Russian literature and
are able to appreciate its function consider that its
realism constitutes its principal virtue and attraction.
And it is this realism which makes it an international
literature. The connection between the realistic char-
acter of Russian literature and its universal quality is
very well defined by M. Venguerov in a recent volume.
This is what he says : —

" Are not all the great Russian writers at the same
time international writers? Must we not place them
in the front rank of humanity? . . . If we limit the
comparison to the modern period of Russian literature
— that is, to the second half of the nineteenth century —
and if we enumerate only the best-known authors, we
see that its place is quite different. Are the works of
Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Dostoievsky on the same level
as the English and American productions of the same
period, the most eminent of which are the novels pf
George Eliot and Mrs. Beecher Stowe, the short stories
of Bret Harte, the nebulous poetry of Browning, the
sugary idylls of Tennyson? Are they on a level with
the contemporary literature of Germany, the most
notable examples of which bear the names of Auerbach,
Freitag, Spielhagen, and Paul Heise? Lastly, is the
place of Russian literature quite on the same level with
that of French literature, although this is illumined by
such talents as those of Dumas fits, Flaubert, and Guy
de Maupassant?

" No ; we may say it without any chauvinism ; in the

204 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

individual genius of its protagonists and, above all, in
its fundamental tendencies, the Russian literature of
the second half of the nineteenth century is absolutely
on a higher plane than the modern literature of Western
Europe, which reached its apogee not in the second
but in the first half of the century, with Goethe, Schiller,
Heine, Byron, Balzac, Hugo, George Sand, Dickens,
etc. Has not realism— which quite recently, in Europe,
appeared to be the last phase of literary progress — has
not realism, with us, been predominant for some eighty
years? And again, can any man with a cultivated sense
of the artistic fail to realize how far the famous Euro-
pean 'realism' of 1870-80, so nearly akin to porno-
graphy and absence of the ideal, is inferior to the
realism of the Russian writers? With the Russians life
is represented with a fidelity which amounts to complete
reproduction, and this reproduction, which attains the
very limits of the actual, is yet illumined by the ideal
and full of a love of humanity of which there is not even
a trace in the greater European realists. . . . And
there is no doubt that it is precisely this difference which
explains the mystery of the stupendous success which
the Russian writers have achieved with the public and
the critics of Western Europe. Every one was con-
scious that the stagnant waters of European literature
had been stirred by a fresh current, full of fresh colours,
which were the result, not of putrefaction, but of the
organic labour of forces which were still young, virgin,
and incorruptible. The barbarians of yesterday were
speaking a new language, which was to echo profoundly
through European literature." »

But while admitting all this, we must not forget that
Russian realism' was born under the influence of a few
European authors, and in particular of Shakespeare,
whose mighty shadow hovered over the cradle of the
young literature. To-day, when all humanity has just
been celebrating the tercentenary of Shakespeare, Russia
has reason to be peculiarly grateful to him.

* S. Vengucrov, The Heroic Character of Russian Literature (Peters-
burg, 191 1), pp. 21,22.

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 205

III

M. Lirondelle, in his work on Shakespeare en Russie,
touches on the important problem of the conflict between
the influence of Shakespeare upon Russian literature
and that of Byron. Speaking of the impress of Shake-
speare upon Pushkin, the father of Russian prose and
poetry, M. Lirondelle remarks that " Pushkin did not,
upon coming into contact with Shakespeare, incur the
danger which Byron brought upon him by leading him
toward an exaggerated subjectivity." The same idea
is expressed by many historians of Russian literature,
who assert, moreover, that Shakespeare delivered
Pushkin from the peril of Byronic subjectivism.

I do not share this opinion, for the following
reasons : —

In the first place, I do not understand why
Byronism should be, or should be said to be,
more dangerous to Russian writers than " Ham-
letism," which has left a deep imprint upon our
literature. M Hamletism " is the scepticism of a
superior mind devoid of all moral energy, all power
of action. These characteristics were predominant in
the Russian " intellectuals " of certain periods of the
last century, as I have already stated in my Modern:
Russia. As for Byronism, the lack of will so typical of
" Hamletism " is unknown to it. During its first diffu-
sion through Russia Byronism was accepted by our
" intellectuals " more especially as a revolutionary pro-
test of the individual against the old political and social
forces which oppressed it. Byron, to the Russians, was
not merely the author of Don Juan and Childe Harold ;
he was also the poet of the Greek insurrection and plf
liberty in general. It is of great importance to realize
that of the three principal currents of Western
romanticism, that which had the most influence over
Russian literature was not the romanticism of Germany,
with its fantastic ballads, nor the romanticism of France,
with its conservatism and mysticism, but the romanti-

206 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

cism of England. And it was not the fault of the
Russian writers and M intellectuals " that the external
conditions of their country did not allow them to realize,
in actual life, their Byronic impulse, which was for them
an impulse toward liberty and truth. It was not their
fault that this impulse, shattered by the social and
political conditions of the country, lost its energy and
degenerated into a passive " Hamletism."

In the Russian life of the nineteenth century there
were moments of the most intense social and political
activity. At these moments the young " intellectuals "
were often extremely hard upon the "Byronians." In
1877, when Dostoievsky pronounced a funeral address
over the tomb of the poet Nekrassov, beloved by the
vanguard of Russian youth, he compared the dead poet
to Pushkin and Lermontov, whereupon a voice from the
crowd about the tomb cried out that Nekrassov was
superior to Pushkin and Lermontov, because they " were
only Byronians." Dostoievsky himself had not much
love for the Russian M Byronians " ; they, were anti-
pathetic to him as " Occidentalists," and men who felt
themselves detached from the national soil. More
than once he derided them ; more than once he
was unjust to them. In 1S61 he wrote of them as
follows : —

" There were in our country Byronic natures. The
4 Byronians ' usually stood about with folded arms, with-
out even taking the trouble to damn things, like the
head of their school. They were content to smile
bitterly from time to time, and they derided their
English original because on occasion he wept or lost
his temper, which was entirely unworthy of a peer.
Their quiet disdain permitted them to spend their time
junketing in restaurants, growing fatter not daily only
but hourly ; and their gentle bitterness filled them
merely with an amiable hatred of property. Some there
were who, in their disinterestedness — in respect of others
—dipped into the pockets of their neighbours and en-
riched themselves at their expense. Some became

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE 207

4 Grecians.' We regarded them with admiration. ' To
think,' we used to tell ourselves, ' that what these fine
fellows do they do on principle 1 * "

But later on Dostoievsky abandoned this point of
view, and when his auditors by, the coffin of Nekrassov
sought in turn to belittle the Byronians, he took it
upon himself to defend the latter. In this connection
Dostoievsky published in his Diary of an Author a
remarkable passage descriptive of Byronism : —

" In the first place," he says, " it seems to me that
one should not employ the word ' Byronian ' as an
insult. Byronism was only a momentary phenomenon,
but it was not without importance, and it came at the
right time. It appeared at a period of anguish and dis-
illusion. After a frantic enthusiasm for a new ideal
born in France at the end of the eighteenth century —
and France was then the foremost nation of Europe —
humanity recovered itself, and the events which followed
were so little like those which had been expected, and
men understood so clearly, that they had been tricked,
that there have been few sadder moments in the history
of Western Europe. The old idols lay overthrown, when
a powerful and passionate poet revealed himself. In
his songs echoed the anguish of man, and he wept that
he had been deceived. His was a muse as yet unknown
— the muse of vengeance, malediction, and despair. The
cry of Byron found an echo. How could it fail to do
so in a heart as great as Pushkin's? Any real talent
was bound, at that time, to pass through a Byronic
period. In Russia many grievous problems were still
unsolved, and it was Pushkin's glory that he discovered,
in the midst of men who barely understood him, a way
of escape from the dismal situation. This way of escape
was to return to the people."

As for Lermontov, " he," says Dostoievsky, " was
also a Byronian ; but thanks to the power of his
originality he was a Byronian of a peculiar kind, dis-
dainful and capricious, believing neither in his own
inspiration nor in his Byronism." And if death had not

208 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

stopped him on the way, M he too would have found his
way directly to the national truth."

For Dostoievsky the essence of Russian Byronism
consists of the opposition between " the type of Russian
tormented by Europeanism " and " the people." Dos-
toievsky saw the solution of this conflict in the sub-
mission of the " Europeanized intellectual " to the
" national truth," the truth of the common people.
The Occidentalists, on the contrary, saw it in the
Europeanization of the people themselves. But I do
not wish to lay stress upon this point. What I do wish
to emphasize is that Dostoievsky very, correctly under-
stood and defined the historic significance of Byronism
in Russia. That this Russian Byronism achieved so great
an expansion was due precisely to the fact that it offered
a ready-made formula for a real phenomenon. We
cannot, therefore, compare M the danger of Byronic
subjectivism " with Shakespearean objectivism when
comparing the influence exerted by the one and the
other poet in Russia. With us, to be Byronic meant, at
certain periods, to be faithful to the objectivism of the
life which gave rise to the Byronic type within the walls
of Petersburg and Moscow.

For this reason, perhaps, we should not be surprised
by the undoubted fact that " Byronism," like " Shake-
spearism," was a factor present at the very origin of
literary realism in Russia.

PART THE FIFTH
IDEALS

M

CHAPTER I

l. The first collision between nationalist ideals and Western influ-
ences—The first Russian zapadnik. II. Two Muscovite imigris.
III. The first Slavophile in Russia.

We have seen under what conditions Europe penetrated
the economic and political life of Russia. Let us now
consider how Europe contributed to form the Russian
mentality, the national consciousness of Russia.

To gain a proper understanding of the subject we
must once more ascend the stream of history and
commence our examination at the period when the first
collision occurred between European ideas and the soul
of ancient Russia — that is, the eighteenth century.

At the same time appears the very curious and very
characteristic figure of the first Russian zapadnik.1
This was Prince Ivan Khovrostinin, the champion of
Occidentalism, which was finding its way into Russia
through Poland.

During the ephemeral reign of Dimitri the Impostor,
Khovrostinin was attached to his Court, in which there
were many Poles. In this environment Khovrostinin
became acquainted with Latin civilization and Catholi-
cism. Full of the ideas derived from these sources,
he rebelled against Muscovite manners and the Orthodox
religion. After the fall of Dimitri I he was accused
by the old Orthodox Russians of " Latin heresy," and
was deported to the monastery of St. Joseph, " there
to do penance." Shortly afterwards he was set at

P Zapadnik, derived from zapad (west), signifies a partisan of
Western ideas, an admirer of Europe.

811

212 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

liberty. In the " Period of Disturbances " he com-
manded a regiment of the Muscovite army against the
Poles and their allies. He even became a Muscovite
dignitary.

But the transformation was too great ; he could
no longer feel any sympathy for the old Russia. He
attacked her again, once more, for his compatriots,
becoming a "heretic"; once more to be accused by.
them of pride and contempt for his country. In 1623
the Tsar gave orders for his imprisonment in the
monastery of St. Cyril, where he was to be placed
"under the orders of a good ancient (monk)." The
instructions of the patriarch were that the princely
heretic " did not pass a single day without prayers
and canticles." A year later he signed a deed of
abjuration, denying his heresy, and was released, to
die in 1625, " reconciled " with Orthodoxy, and having
assumed the monk's robe.

It is highly probable that his submission was only
apparent. The old faith1 and the old ethics of Muscovite
Russia were too repugnant to Khovrostinin to admit
of his sincere conversion.

Professor Klutshevsky describes him as " an original
Russian freethinker with a Catholic basis, who was
imbued with a profound antipathy for the dry ritualism
of the Byzantine Church, and for the whole life of
Russia, which was steeped in this ritualism."
Klutshevsky even compares Khovrostinin to Tchuadaev,
of whom we shall speak later on. But it must not be
thought that Khovrostinin deserted Orthodoxy for
Catholicism. In his writings and the memoirs of his
contemporaries we find no evidence of his conversion.
What he knew of Catholicism and the Wfcst in general
did not lead him' toward any positive new faith, but
merely made him sensible of the defects of his own.
He was an atheist. The indictment brought against
him asserted that not only, did he not go to church,
but he did not allow his serfs to do so, and in case
of disobedience he used to beat therri and otherwise

IDEALS 213

punish them'. His accusers also pretended that he was
lacking in respect for the Tsar, and that he spoke
of him as " the despot."

•What particularly impresses us in Khovrostinin is
his profound moral and intellectual isolation. " Euro-
peanized " mentally, he was above his environment.
If it is true that he assumed the gown of a monk towards
the end of his life, it was because he himself was
conscious of his spiritual solitude ; he would willingly,
have quitted a world with which he could not possibly
live on peaceable terms.

Such was the first case known to us of rupture
between a " Russian European " and his country.

II

Thirty-five years after the death of Prince Ivan
Khovrostinin had disembarrassed the Orthodox Church
and the government of the Tsar of his hostility, the
Muscovite Chancelleries had occasion to deal with
another M refractory " — the young boyarin Vo'in Ordyn-
Nashtshokin, who took refuge abroad (in 1660) because
Russian life "made his gorge rise."

Voin Ordyn-Nashtshokin had been taught by his
father, a Muscovite diplomatist of some repute, to hold
things European in respect, and his education was con-
fided to Polish1 professors who succeeded in inspiring
him with a great affection for the lights of Western
civilization and a great contempt for his own back-
ward country. Dominated by these feelings, he
emigrated first to Poland and then to France. The
Moscow Government was so irritated by his departure
that it sought to " put an end to his earthly existence."
But this was useless/; for after four years abroad the
young boyarin, overcome by a profound nostalgia, re-
pented, and was " pardoned " by the Tsar, who at first
ordered him to live on one of his father's estates, and
afterwards confined him for some time in the monastery
of St. Cyril, where he was obliged to be present at
the daily offices, in order to strengthen his orthodoxy.

214 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Thanks to the solicitations of his father he was able
to leave the monastery in 1667, and ended his days
as a provincial voievoda.

The Russia of his days " made his gorge rise."
Yet he returned of his own free will. Why? M.
Plekhanov explains the fact as follows :—

" Men like Prince Ivan Khovrostinin and Voin Nasht-
shokin were ' nauseated * by Moscow ; foreign lands
attracted them. But they found it as difficult to adapt
themselves to Western Europe. Their misfortune, their
great and irreparable misfortune, was that they were
foreigners either side of the Muscovite frontier."1 They
were " the first victims when Muscovy turned toward
the West."

The third eminent zapadnik, Grigory Kotoshikhin,
was attracted by Sweden. He was an official of the
Prikaz of Foreign Affairs. He established relations
with a merchant of Narva, of Russian origin, but a
Swedish subject. He also came into contact with
Swedish diplomatists. He carried his complaisance
toward them to the length of giving them' certain secret
information. The following year, in 1644, he left
Russia and settled in Sweden, where he entered the
administration. But three years later misfortune over-
took him in his new country ; he mortally wounded
a Swede in a quarrel, and was condemned to death.

It was not to escape punishment for his act of
" high treason " that Kotoshikhin left Russia ; the
venality of the Muscovite bureaucracy was such that
it was accustomed to such indiscretions. Kotoshikhin
had other reasons for his actions : the same as had
previously impelled young Ordyn-Nashtshokin to leave
his country. A man of great intellectual ability (vir
ingenio incomparabile, says his Swedish biographer),
he was incapable of descending to the level of his
compatriots.

In his remarkable work on Russia under Alexis
Mikhailovitch he paints in exact but pitiless colours

' G. Plekhanov, History of Social Ideas in Russia, vol. i. p. 276.

IDEALS 215

the fashionable Muscovite society of the mid-seven-
teenth century, the administration, the juridical system,
and the manners of the day. The impression produced
by his description, even at a distance of two and a half
centuries, is extremely painful. The population is
ignorant, even in its upper classes ; above all the
women, who are imprisoned between the four walls
of their homes. The Tsarina cannot be allowed to
assist at the official reception of the ambassadors,
because she is too unintelligent, and does not know
how to behave in the presence of foreigners. ,The
inhabitants even of the capital lack the most elementary
security ; the brigands are the masters in the streets
of Moscow. The public administrations are composed
of individuals chosen not for their intelligence, but on
account of their birth; and the boyars who sit in
the Duma are dense and stupid ; they " rest their
beards " on the table, understanding nothing.

All this, in Kotoshikhin's opinion, because Russia
was isolated from Europe.

" They (the Russians) do not send their sons to be
educated abroad, because they fear that, having become
acquainted with the religion, the manners, and the
excellent liberty of other countries, they would proceed
to abandon their own religion and embrace another,
without giving a thought to returning to their homes and
their parents."

Ill

The Slavophiles bitterly' reproached Kotoshikhin for
his attacks upon the old Russia. They often contrasted
him with another moralist of the same period — Jury
Krijanitsh.

Of Serb origin, born in Croatia in 1617, a pupil
in the Catholic seminary of Vienna, he entered Russia
in 1646, and lived there for five years. In 1660 he
returned to Russia, but in 1661 he was deported to
Tobolsk in Siberia, where he lived for fifteen years.
Between 1676 and 1680 he was in Poland. After 1680
we lose sight of hirri.

216 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Krijanitsh", according to his own statement, was drawn
to Russia by his love of the Slavs. He searched
among the Slavs for a people which had not as yet
been denationalized by foreign influence. He regarded
the Slavs of Pomerania, Silesia, Bohemia, and Moravia
as finally Germanized. The Slavs of the Balkans,
according to him, M had long ago lost not only th#ir
national formations, but their power, their language,
and their understanding." M Their States cannot be
re-established at present, in these difficult times ; one
can only open their mind's eye by means of books,
so that they may learn for themselves to understand
their dignity, and to dream of their independence."
Krijanitsh had more hope of the Poles, but he believed
they would need help from Russia, whose assistance
and protection were still more necessary to the other
Slavs.

But in order to protect and guide the Slav world,
Russia, said Krijanitsh, ought to emancipate herself
from her " xenomania," that is, from her exaggerated
love of foreign things and persons. Krijanitsh con-
sidered that foreigners weakened the two principal bases
of Russia's power : her material wealth and her military
forces. Foreign merchants exploited the population,
buying its products at a low price and selling their
own goods to it at a high price ; they exported grain,
which the country needed for the increase of its popula-
tion, and imported articles which1 helped to corrupt
the Russians and to introduce foreign tastes among
them. As for the military force of Russia, the par-
ticipation of foreigners in its transformation was an
evil, because the organization established by them was
adapted to wars upon the iWestern frontier, but not
to the struggle against the nomads of the South, who
were particularly dangerous. The appointment of
foreigners as officers resulted in the rejection of
Russians, and the soldiers, who were given orders in
a foreign language, had no confidence in their officers,
and were losing confidence in themselves.

IDEALS 217

Krijanitsh reached a very simple conclusion. The
foreigners must be expelled ; European merchants were
to be tolerated only in a few mercantile towns near
the frontier ; as for the foreign " colonels," they were
to be dismissed and sent home to their own countries
as soon as they had transferred their knowledge to the
Russians— which they had already accomplished.

However, Krijanitsh was not a reactionary nationalist
after the pattern of those which Russia knew in the nine-
teenth century. He recommended the Russian people
to follow " a middle path," equally removed from the
two extremes; one of which, according to Krijanitsh,
was represented by the Byzantine Greeks and the other
by the Europeans. He compared the action of these
two factors, and described it in a very, interesting
manner : —

' There are," he writes, *' two peoples which lead
Russia into temptation by offering baits of a contrary
nature. . . . They are the Niemtzy ■ and the Greeks.
Despite all their differences, these two peoples are in
perfect agreement upon one point: that is, as to the
fundamental aim of the temptations which they offer,
and this agreement is such that one might well believe
in a conspiracy against us.

" i. The Niemtzy recommend us to accept all sorta
of novelties. They want us to abandon all our old and
praiseworthy institutions, and to adopt their customs
and their depraved laws. The Greeks, on the other
hand, condemn all novelties, without exception. . » „
They tell us again and again that every new thing is an
evil thing. But reason tells us that nothing can be good
or bad simply because it is new. Every good thing and
every evil thing has begun by being a new thing. . » .
We cannot accept novelties without discussion, frivo-
lously, for in that case we might be mistaken. But
we must not refuse that which is good because of its
newness, for in this case also we might be in error. . . .

* The name of Niemtzy was then applied to Europeans in general.
To-day it is reserved for the Germans.

218 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

44 2. The Greeks taught us long ago the Orthodox
religion . The Niemtzy preach heresies which are impure
and have a disastrous effect on the soul. Reason
counsels us in this connection to be very grateful to
the Greeks, to avoid the Niemtzy, and to detest them as
though they were devils or dragons.

"3. The Niemtzy try to induce us to go to school
with them. . . . They advise us to make the free
sciences— that is, the philosophical sciences — a common
possession, accessible to every moujik. The Greeks,
on the contrary, condemn all knowledge and all the
sciences, and recommend us to remain ignorant. But
reason says : Avoid diabolical enchantments like the
Devil himself, but believe that ignorance does not lead
to good.

"4. The Niemtzy set the preaching or the reading of
the Gospel above everything ; they hope to achieve
salvation thereby, without any help of penitence or good
works. Moreover, they provoke us to argument. As
for the Greeks, they have entirely suppressed and con-
demn the preaching of the Word of God. And they
have condemned and prohibited disputes and assem-
blies. But reason counsels us (1) to be zealous in the
matter of penitence and good works ; (2) not to despise
the preaching of the Gospel. But the first-comer must
not be permitted to preach. . . . Only the bishop or
one of the most ancient monks may do so. As for
mere priests— and even this is not fitting for all — it is
enough for them to read sermons from books. Now,
in Germany and Poland any drunken priest may preach
the word of God.

"5. The Niemtzy advise us to abandon ourselves to
all the pleasures of the body and teach us to despise the
life of the monks, vigils, and all mortifications of the
flesh. The Greeks require that we shall observe the true
and praiseworthy Christian temperance, but besides this
they propagate a special kind of false piety and Phari-
saical superstition. They seek to wash away spiritual
taints by means of corporeal ablutions, and they think

IDEALS 219

to cleanse the impurity of the body by the prayers of
priests, etc. But reason says: One must by no means
suffer corporeal debauchment and despise the acts of
penitence nor the mortification of the flesh. As for
pious practices which are new and suspect and unknown
to our fathers, they should be carefully examined
beforehand.

"6. In political matters the Greeks advise us to act
in all things according to the example of the Turkish
Court. Themselves devoid of political knowledge and
experience, they can only tell us of what they have seen at
the Porte. As for the Niemtzy, they condemn all the
customs, laws, and institutions of the Turks. Anything
that bears the name of Turkish is, in their country, by
that sole fact, reputed as barbarous, inhuman, and
bestial. But reason says that even in Turkey there are
some institutions which are excellent and worthy of
imitation, though not, of course, all.

" 7. The Niemtzy, maintaining that no one should
be punished because of his religion, take their stand
upon the Gospel, which says : 4 Judge not, that ye be
not judged.' The Greeks avail themselves of another
text : ' Let him that shall preach unto you that which
you have not heard be excommunicated,' and they,
deduce from this passage and others like it that
we must set them apart and believe them without dis-
cussion. But if reason counsels us to reject without re-
examination the German heresies, and all others already
condemned, when a fresh controversy, arises we must
first of all become acquainted with it and properly
examine it, and not condemn it without having informed
ourselves of its nature.

" 8. The Greeks flatter us and seek to gain our
favour by means of fables, exaggerating the antiquity
of the Russian State ; and in reality they disparage and
insult it. They have called Moscow the third Rome
and have imagined the ridiculous idea that the Russian
State should be a Roman State, having a right to the
insignia of the Empire. The Niemtzy calumniate us

220 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

and seek by. all means to prove that the Russian State
is only a simple principality, and that the Russian
sovereigns are merely High Princes. Both Greeks and
Niemtzy refuse to this State the name and rank of king-
dom ; both agree in this imposture that the Roman
State could not be a mere kingdom, but something*
superior, and that Russia could not be its equal save
by an investiture which would be conferred upon it by,
the Roman State. But reason says that God alone can-
create sovereigns, and not the Roman Emperor. , . .
The Russian State is as great and as glorious as the
Roman State, has never been subjected to the latter, and
is equal to it in power.

81 9. By all the foregoing we see plainly the danger
and diversity of the temptations to which the Niemtzy
and the Greeks expose us, while giving us, moreover,
counsels which are diametrically opposed. In fact, the
former want to contaminate us with their novelties,-
while the latter condemn all novelties as a whole, and
foist their aberrations upon us under cover of a false
antiquity. The former sow heresies ; the latter,
although they taught us the true religion, have mingled
schism with it. The former offer us a mixture of the
true and the diabolical sciences ; the latter glorify
ignorance and regard all the sciences as heresies. The
former cherish the vain hope of saving themselves by
the word alone ; the others despise the spoken word
and prefer complete speechlessness. The former, the
partisans of every licence, draw us toward the broad
road of destruction ; the others resort to pharisaical
superstition and exaggerated devoutness, marking out
for us a path even narrower than the true and difficult
path of salvation. The former regard all institutions
of the Turkish State as barbarous, tyrannical, and in-
human ; the latter profess that everything about the
Turkish State is good and praiseworthy. The former
hold that we should judge no one ; the latter assert
that we should condemn without hearing the defence.
The former refuse to this State the honours which are

IDEALS 221

its due ; the latter confer upon it Tumours which are
fictitious, vain, absurd, and impossible. Thus, in dis-
agreement upon almost every point, they are in perfect
agreement to regard our people with equal hatred, ttij
despise and belittle it and load it with the most dreadful
calumnies and accusations."

As we see, Krijanitsh, often regarded as the father of
the Slavophile movement in Russia, was pretty severe
upon " Byzantism," which is so highly esteemed by the
Slavophiles.1 It is especially significant that he opposes
the theory, introduced into Russia in the fifteenth cen-
tury by the Balkan Slavs, according to which Moscow
should be " the third Rome," the heiress of the first two
Romes (Rome and Byzantium). This theory had a
great vogue in the Muscovite Court under Ivan III, whoj
had married Sophia Palaeologus, niece of the Byzantine
Emperor. It was essentially a conservative theory ;
lest she share the fate of the first and the second Rome,
Russia must change neither her habits nor her customs
nor her institutions, for " the country, which changes
these does not endure much longer." Krijanitsh held
that Russia should turn aside from the conservative
traditions of Byzantium as well as from the civilization
of Western Europe and should follow her own path.

He considered that Russia enjoyed many advantages
over the West. The Russians, he says, lead a simpler
life than the Europeans. In Russia the distance
between the rich and the poor is not so great as in
Europe, where on the one hand you find a ** Sar-
danapalus " lapped in luxury, and on the other a!
starving artisan who possesses nothing. M In Russia,
thanks to God, everybody, the poorest as jvell as the
richest, eats rye bread, fish, and meat," and lives in a
well-warmed house, while in the &Vest the indigent suffer
from the cold because " wood is sold for its weight in

1 I refer the reader to the opinion of M. Bulgakov, one of the
leaders of the modern Slavophiles, cited at the beginning of the
present volume.

222 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

gold." " Thus the life of the peasants and artisans is
better in Russia than in many countries."

In this connection a modern writer (G. Plekhanov)
says that Krijanitsh paints the condition of the Great
Russian people in too rosy a hue. " But there was truth
in his picture. In countries in which a natural economy
prevails, articles of prime necessity, such as bread and
meat, are much more accessible to the people than in
countries in which commercial exchanges are largely
developed. We know to-day that the division of social
labour in Western Europe has resulted in the im-
poverishment of the laborious masses. There is thus
undeniable truth in this antithesis between Muscovite
Russia and the West. Krijanitsh is the first writer to
make it. . . . This antithesis provided a sufficient and
logical basis for the doubt: Is it not a sin against the
people to favour the productive forces of the country?
The question did not occur to Krijanitsh himself. But
the Russian " intellectuals " of the nineteenth century,
to whom the interests of the labouring masses were very
dear, must have spent perhaps the greater portion of
their energies in trying to solve this " accursed " ques-
tion. In this respect the Serbo-Russian philosopher of
the seventeenth century was the precursor of our
contemporary narodniki.

Krijanitsh recognized that the character and the
life of the Russians presented many defects. For
example, he very severely condemns M the hideous
drunkenness " prevalent in Russia, the idleness and
prodigality, the lack of education, etc. He admitted
that Europeans were more civilized than the Russians,
and he realized that a cultivated and educated people
always exploits a more ignorant people. He even
admitted the necessity of education and civilization,
but he thought that the time had gone by for the
Russians to M sit on the benches of the European
school," and that they could now " expel the Niemtzy "
and live without their aid. He demanded " the closing
of the Russian frontiers." Yet, at the same time, when

IDEALS 223

it came to giving the Russians practical advice, he again
took Europe as his example, and looked to Europe for
useful lessons. Showing the necessity of developing
the economic forces of Russia, he proposed England and
the Netherlands as examples. To the M bad legislation "
of Russia he opposed that of France, " which was
good."

Krijanitsh was the determined opponent of Byzantine
and Oriental despotism. He was in favour of an en-
lightened monarchy, based upon the privileged classes,
to which it should grant proper liberties. And again
he referred to the experience of Europe: " Among the
French and the Spaniards the great enjoy certain liber-
ties which they owe to their birth, and thanks to which
the kings are not exposed to any outrage from the
people nor from the army. Among the Turks, on the
other hand, where there are no liberties proper to the
nobility, the sovereigns are exposed to, the stupidity and
insolence of mere infantrymen."

In the existence of privileges and liberties for the
upper classes Krijanitsh saw a means of " changing
a rigorous government or a tyranny into a moderate
government." M. Milukov compares this system with
that of the " intermediary powers " of Montesquieu,
which was expounded a century later.

This brief glimpse of the ideas of Krijanitsh shows
that the first Russian " Slavophile " was by no means
radically inimical to Europe, and that he sought lessons
from the Western civilizations. If we are tempted to
regard him as the first representative of nationalism in
Russia, we must not forget that he was not of Russian
origin, that he came from the West, and that he brought
all these ideas from the West.

We shall see later on that the Slavophiles of the
nineteenth century, like Krijanitsh, borrowed from the
thought of Europe.

CHAPTER' II

I The impossibility of a compromise between Muscovite Russia and
European tendencies. II. The Russian Voltaireans — The "his-
torical superfluities" — The opinions of Klutshevsky and Herzen
on the Russian Voltaireans. III. Radish tshev and Novikov.

The middle way, recommended by Krijanitsh was not
followed, and Russia passed from one extreme to the other.

In the middle of the seventeenth century the Euro-
peans were within an ace of being expelled from Russia,
as Krijanitsh recommended. The populace, excited by
the priests and other representatives of Byzantine con-
servatism, subjected them, in Moscow, to a regular
pogrom. At the instance of the clergy the Govern-
ment of the Tsar Mikhail F.edorovitch gave the order to
demolish the three Lutheran churches which then existed
in Moscow, prohibited the wearing of European costume
by Russians, confined foreigners to a residential zone
in Moscow, forbade them to employ Russian servants,
and expelled the English merchants from all the towns
excepting Archangel.

But, as a Russian historian has remarked, " to expel
the foreigners from Moscow, while it was impossible to
do without them; was to make it compulsory to go to
them, to their own countries, there to seek knowledge."

Under Alexei Mikhailovitch the nationalist insurgency,
came to an end. But this sovereign strove to maintain
a certain equilibrium between the indigenous reaction
and European progress. Russian historians represent
him with one foot beyond the Western frontier and one
planted on his native soil, ■" congealed In an attitude of
indecision." ,

994

IDEALS

This state of affairs could not last long, for no co-
existence, however brief, was possible to Byzantine con-
servatism and " Europeanization." The history of the
schism proves in a most striking fashion that the
partisans of the old Russia rejected even the most
necessary " novelties." The order given by the
Patriarch Nikon, that the text of the book of ritual
employed by the popes should be revised with refer-
ence to the originals, because the errors which it
contained were frequently of great importance and ex-
tremely gross, was denounced as a " heresy " by the
conservatives, who opposed it with all their might.
From this arose the great schism of the Orthodox
Church. To disturb nothing, to preserve everything1
as it had been for centuries : such was the watchword
of militant nationalism. Its excesses explain those of
the spirit of innovation which appeared in the reign of
Peter I. The two conceptions were too violently
opposed for any possibility of reconciliation. But the
material force being on the side of authority, the oppo-
sition could do nothing but submit, or leave a country
invaded by European " heresies " and " novelties."

In the first half of the seventeenth century the parti-
sans of European influence had to seek refuge in the
West from the persecutions of Byzantine conservatism.
In the second half of the same century and the begin-
ning of the next it was for the conservatives to fall under
the blows of the " innovators," or, in their flight from
Western " civilization," to escape into the immense
forests of the Ural and the North, or the vast steppes
of the South.

But it must be admitted that in the reign of Peter I
it was no battle of ideas which broke out between the
old Russia and the new. The " Europeanization "
undertaken by Peter I was material, and brutal in its
practical materialism. Its immediate aim was, so to
speak, the transformation of the external aspect of
men and things, beginning with the long beards of the
boyars and ending with the names of State institutions,

15

226 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

and it coincided with the burden of conscription and
taxation. For this reason it is very difficult to say
whether the conservatives protested and fled en masse
for spiritual reasons (as did Ordyn-Nashtshokin) or for
reasons of temporal interest.

In the second half of the eighteenth century, under
Catherine II, the conflict between Russia and Europe
was far more abstract, and was extremely interesting
from the standpoint of the history of ideological
evolution . f

II

AVhile in the seventeenth century a Europeanized
Russian was regarded by his contemporaries as a
heretic, at the end of the eighteenth century he was
known as a voltairianetz (Voltairean) or a farmazon
(Freemason). The first term is especially characteristic,
as it proves how great was the influence in Russia of
French philosophy in general and of Voltaire's in
particular.

But the Russian voltairianetz of the time of Catherine
II was not merely an admirer of Voltaire, as many were
in all European countries ; the Russian voltairianetz
was a veritable social and historical type, and no student
of the history of Russian culture can omit him from the
scope of his inquiry.

Many of our historians have dealt with the Russian
voltairianstvo. But hitherto the best description of it —
I would even say the one unique and truly classical
description — is that of the poet-historian Klutshevsky.
I profit by this description all the more readily as it
is only to be found in the lithographed and extremely
rare examples of the lectures which Klutshevsky
delivered at the University of Moscow.

Under Yelisaveta, the " merry Tsarina," the impetus
which came from Europe was rather of an aesthetic
quality : Russia took from Europe what was capable of
embellishing life, in the purely material sense of the
word. Under Catherine II the desire to adorn the mind

IDEALS 227

was added to the desire to embellish the material aspect
of life. In the reign of Yelisaveta society was fully
prepared for the enjoyment of intellectual pleasures ;
it had learned French and acquired a taste for belles-
lettres. For the society of the day France had become
the school of worldly elegance just at the moment when
French literature was proclaiming new ideas in books
which found an echo on every hand. The Russians,
who were entirely ready to receive these new ideas,
welcomed them with an avidity which was favoured by
the Court. Even in Yelisaveta's reign the Court had
established relations with the great French writers.
Voltaire became an honorary member of the Russian
Academy of Sciences, and was commissioned to write
a history of Peter the Great. Catherine, in her youth,
had been fascinated by the masterpieces of French
literature ; once on the throne, she hastened to enter
directly into communication with their authors. Carried
away to some extent by the general tendency, Catherine
was also obedient to diplomatic considerations: she
sought to win the good graces of these masters of
opinion, because she attached a great importance to the
approval of Paris. Her correspondence with Voltaire is
a proof of this. She wished to entrust d'Alembert with
the education of the Crown Prince Paul, the heir to the
Russian throne, and reproached him keenly and at
length for his refusal. She extended her favours to
Diderot : having learned that the editor of the Encyclo-
pcedia was in want of money, she bought his library
for £600 and entrusted the care of it to d'Alembert,
paying him a salary of £40 a year.

Fashionable Russian society shared the enthusiasm
of the Empress. The Russian seigneurs engaged
French tutors for their children. The republican La
Harpe educated Catherine's grandson, the future
Alexander I. Romme, the future Montagnard, did the
same for Count Stroganov, the friend of Alexander.
The sons of Count Soltykov were confided to the brother
of Marat.

228 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

The lesser nobility could not afford the luxury of such
tutors, and contented itself with books. French works
circulated freely and extensively throughout the Empire,
finding their way to the remotest corners of the pro-
vinces. To-day we can hardly realize the immense
number of French volumes which were translated into
Russian and offered for sale in the reign of
Catherine II. A Ukrainian dvorianin, Vinsky, an
officer of the Guard, mentions in his memoirs some
very interesting details bearing on this point. During
his residence in Petersburg he found all the best French
authors in the houses of his friends, whether military
or civilian. Shortly afterwards he was deported to
Orenburg, for some such prank as was often committed
in the Guard. In that remote town he began, as a
distraction, the translation of French authors, his
versions being circulated in manuscript. A few years
later he had the pleasure of receiving several of his
own manuscripts from Siberia, sent him as a curious
" novelty." On the banks of the Volga, at Simbirsk, at
Kazan, and elsewhere, French literature was known and
appreciated.

Under its influence the relations between Russian
society and Europe were modified. In the reign of
Peter I the nobles used to go abroad to study the art
of war or navigation. Then they did so to acquire
le bon ton. In the reign of Catherine they went to
France to salute the philosophers. Russians appeared
from time to time among the guests of Voltaire at
Ferney, and Catherine wrote to him that many of her
officers were delighted with their visits to him. French-
men who visited Petersburg at the end of Catherine's
reign were equally delighted with the intellectual youth
which they met there, some going so far as to declare it
the most cultivated and "most philosophical" in Europe.

The reign of French literature and philosophy was
the last phase of intellectual and moral development
traversed by Russian society after the death of Peter 1 .
The fashionable gentleman, the artilleryman or naval

IDEALS 229

officer of the time of Peter, a dandy under Yelisaveta,
became, under Catherine, a " man of letters," a free-
thinker, and a freemason or Voltairean.

What has remained in Russia of this Western
impress? To understand this we must recall the
character of French Encyclopaedism. It was the first
revolt against the order of things based upon Catholic
and feudal tradition, to which it opposed a host of
logical conceptions and systems. This was the
philosophy which made the conquest of enlightened
minds in Russia, where feudality, properly so called,
and Catholicism did not exist. In France the Encyclo-
paedic theories expressed the very real and concrete
pretensions of the Third Estate, which aspired to apply
them. The Russian sectaries, on the other hand, did
not regard these theories as of any practical import-
ance ; they regarded them only as dogmas, intended to
remain in the domain of the absolute, not to control
the relations between man and man ; as noble ideals,
expressed in fine phrases, which gave one an air of
distinction, which would help a man to emerge from
the common ruck, but which must by no means be
regarded as rules of actual conduct. Their sensibility
and philanthropy were only verbal ; under this outer
garment they kept intact their egoism, their hardness,
and their old moral habits.

Klutshevsky depicts for us a few types of these
Russian " Encyclopaedists." A wealthy noble in the
Government of Penza, Nikita Strouisky, conceived a
passion for belles-lettres, and himself wrote verses,
which he willingly read to his friends, allowing him-
self to be so far carried away by the heat of declama-
tion that he would sometimes pinch his auditors till
the blood came. This gentleman was greatly interested
also in jurisdiction, and instituted on his estates a
tribunal in accordance with the latest teachings of
European science, only retaining the old Russian method
of torture. The celebrated Princess Dashkov was the
most enlightened of all her contemporaries ; she was

230 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

even appointed President of the Russian Academy of
Sciences. At the age of fifteen or sixteen she con-
ceived such a passion for French that she read the
works of Beyle, Voltaire, and Rousseau until she con-
tracted a nervous malady thereby. At the end of her
brilliant career she lived in Moscow, in isolation, in
which her true nature revealed itself. She received
no one, was completely indifferent to the fate of her
own children, beat her servants, and concentrated all
her feelings and all her activities upon some rats which
she had tamed. The death of her son caused her no
grief ; but if any ill befell one of her rats she was
stricken to the depths of her soul. To begin with
Voltaire and to end with a tame rat — only the subjects
of Catherine were capable of such eccentricities.

What was really the condition of the nobility to which
all these " Voltaireans " belonged? It lived by political
injustice and in a state of social inaction. From the
hands of a diatshok ■ (precentor) the Russian noble
passed into those of a French tutor ; he completed
his education in the Italian theatre or the French
cabaret, applying the ideas thus acquired in the salons
of the capital, and ending his days in his study, in
Moscow or on his country estates, employing his time
in reading Voltaire. His manners, his habits, his ideas,
the sentiments which he had made his own, and the
very language in which he thought, all were of foreign
origin, all were imported from Europe. No living tie,
no organic function, united him to the population which
surrounded him ; he did no serious work, despite his
share in the local administration, where he was sub-
ordinated to the governors, and the exploitation of his
estates, which was based upon the labour of serfs.
He was a useless member of society. A historical
superfluity — such is the phrase which Klutshevsky
applies to the species.

This verdict, which is that of our foremost historian,

1 The precentors or lay clerks gave primary instruction in those
days, and even now they teach in the "parish schools."

IDEALS 231

may be compared with that of Herzen, our foremost
political writer, who in his youth had many opportuni-
ties of observing the survivors of Russian voltairianstvo.

" The eighteenth century produced in the West,"
he says, " a wonderful generation, especially in France,
which possessed all the weaknesses of the Regency
and all the energies of Rome or Sparta. These
prodigies, Faublas and Regulus combined, flung open
the door of the Revolution, and were the first to rush
through it, pushing their way in, only to leave by
the ' window ' of the guillotine. Our century produces
no more of these vigorous and homogeneous natures ;
the last century, on the contrary, evoked them almost
everywhere, even where they were superfluous, where
they could develop only by an anomaly. In Russia,
those upon whom the great Western wind had blown
became not great historical figures, but ' originals.'
Foreigners in their own country, foreigners abroad,
passive spectators, spoiled for Russian life by their
Western prejudices, and for the West by their Russian
habits, they appeared as an intelligent superfluity, astray
in an artificial life." *

Although they agree as to the external type of the
Russian voltairiantzy ', Klutshevsky and Herzen do not
see eye to eye as regards the mind concealed by this
outward aspect. Klutshevsky states that these amateurs
did not suffer from the opposition between their ideals
and the surrounding realities ; that they did not even
feel it ; that they were cheerful and had nothing to
say against the existing order of things. Books
embellished their minds, gave them a certain brilliance,
and sometimes even provided them with a nervous thrill.
But there the influence of French ideas stopped short ;
it did not impel them to form any decision or to take
action of any kind. It gave a charm to their lives,
leaving them indifferent to the lives of others.

Herzen gives a different picture of these Voltaireans.
He speaks of " their malicious raillery, irritability, re-
* A. Herzen, (Euvres, vol. vi. p. 99 (Geneva-Lyons, 1878).

RUSSIA AND EUROPE

moteness from humanity, suspicion, and rancour, a
result of the clash between things so different as the
Europe of the eighteenth century and the life of Russia."

However, Klutshevsky did recognize individual cases
in which the incompatibility between the ideals of the
West and the realities of Russia gave rise to great
suffering, and even to despair. A tragic example of
this despair is afforded by one Opotshinin, a seigneur
of the Government of Yaroslavl, who, as a result of
his European education, found it impossible to resign
himself to the condition of affairs in Russia, and finally,
in 1793, took his own life. In his will he explains
that " his repugnance for Russian life is precisely that
which constrained him spontaneously to decide his fate."
He then spoke of his library : —

"My beloved books, I do not know to whom I
should leave them ; I am sure that no one in this
country has need of them ; I humbly beg my heirs
to burn them. They were my greatest treasure ; they
alone sustained me in life ; without them my life would
have been nothing but a perpetual regret, and I should
long ago have left this world in disgust."

A few minutes before his death Opotshinin had the
courage to begin the translation of those verses of
Voltaire's which begin —

O Dieu, que nous ne connaissons pas ..."

Ill

What Opotshinin understood of his own accord the
Government enabled other voltairiantzy and farmazony
to realize.

We know what a sudden change was produced in
Catherine II, toward the end of her life, by the French
Revolution. From the admirer of the Encyclopaedists
she became the enemy of all liberal ideas, and she
hunted everywhere for signs of the " French contagion,"
in order to exterminate it pitilessly. Voltaire's bust,

' Klutshevsky, Lectures on Russian History. Lithographic edition of
lectures delivered at the University of Moscow, Part IV, pp. 264 et seq,

IDEALS 238

which used to adorn her study, was, by her orders,
relegated to the lumber-room.

Two remarkable Russian writers fell as victims to
this reaction. They were Radishtshev and Novikov.
Both were true zapadniks, but they represented very
different tendencies.

Alexander Radishtshev (i 749-1 802), the author of
" the work which suffered greatly," the Journey from
Petersburg to Moscow, was in 1766 sent by the Govern-
ment, in company with other young men, to the Univer-
sity of Leipzig. There he attended the lectures of
Professors Gellert and Platner. But he preferred
French philosophy to German science, and read Voltaire,
Helv^tius, Raynal, Mably, etc. Under their inspira-
tion, to which we must add that of Rousseau and the
English sentimentalists (and of Sterne in particular),
he wrote his famous book. His Journey is full of
rationalistic ideas, such as were preached by the
Encyclopaedists, concerning the rights of the man and
the citizen. M Man is born into the world equal in
all things to other men. We all possess the same
organs ; we all possess reason and will. . . . We are
all equal, from the time we leave the maternal womb,
in natural liberty ; we must be equals, too, in the
face of the restrictions which are imposed upon this
liberty." Russian society, in which we do not find
the slightest trace of the liberty and equality de-
manded by Radishtshev, he condemned implacably.
Catherine II, now a reactionary, could not tolerate
this courageous criticism, and although the Journey
from Petersburg to Moscow had been published with
the authorization of the censor, the Empress found
that " the intention of this book is visible on every
page ; its author is filled and infected with French
error ; he seeks in every way and by every means
to diminish the respect due to authority and the power
of the State, and to incite in people a feeling of indig-
nation against masters and rulers." Catherine gave
orders that legal proceedings should be instituted

234 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

against Radishtshev, and entrusted the examination to
the cruel police-officer Sheshkovsky, who put his victim
to the torture in order to extort the confession of his
errors and to induce penitence. Radishtshev could not
bear the torture ; he retracted, declaring his book to
be "unreasonable and harmful." He was then con-
demned to death for his writings, but the capital
sentence was commuted for one of perpetual deporta-
tion to Siberia, whither he was sent in chains. Paul I
restored him to liberty, and after the accession of
Alexander I he even became an official. But his
adversaries would not leave him in peace ; and in
1802, fearing fresh persecutions, he poisoned himself.
In his person a fervent and sincere partisan of European
civilization succumbed to the resistance of the old
Russia.

Nicolas Novikov (1744-18 18) was no more fortu-
nate. He, too, may be regarded as a zapadnik,
but of another school. He was a pupil of the
German freemasons and pietists. German pietism was
diametrically opposed to the rationalism of the French
Encyclopaedists ; its sole aim was the moral renewal
of man. This doctrine attracted Novikov, who found
himself under the immediate influence of the German
freemasons, and of a certain Schwarz in particular.
But he was not one of those masons who admit only
of mystical means of human " perfection." On the
contrary, he united to his mysticism a great and sincere
love of science and an enthusiasm for public instruc-
tion. He founded printing-presses, learned societies
and schools ; published school textbooks and other
volumes, reviews, etc. He was, moreover, a philan-
thropist, and in 1787, during the famine, he came to
the aid of the peasants. This beneficent activity was
enough to arouse the suspicions of Catherine. She
instructed an ecclesiastical inquisitor, the Muscovite
Archbishop Piaton, to examine the publications of
Novikov and to " test " his religious convictions.
Piaton declared that a portion of the books published

IDEALS 235

by Novikov was useful and filled a gap in the exist-
ing scholastic publications ; another portion (the
mystical volumes) appeared to him incomprehen-
sible ; a third portion, consisting of the writings of
the Encyclopaedists, he considered to be harmful. As
for Novikov's religious opinions, Platon spoke of them
in the following terms : —

M I pray the most generous God that there may be,
not only amid the garrulous flock confided to me by
Him and by thee, most gracious sovereign, but all
over the world, such Christians as Novikov."

Thanks to these attestations, Novikov was left at
liberty, but not for long. Catherine always regarded
him as a manifestation of the " French contagion," as
she had regarded Radishtshev.

In 1 79 1 Novikov saw that it was expedient to close
his printing establishments, to cease publication or pro-
paganda of any kind, and to retire to his country
estate. This voluntary isolation did not save him ;
in April 1792 a detachment of hussars was sent to
his house, in order to make a search and arrest him;.
Dragged away amid the tears of his peasants, who loved
him greatly (which was unusual), he was transported
first to Moscow, then to the fortress of Schlusselberg.
There the above-mentioned Sheshkovsky " attended "
to Novikov. ... In August 1792 Catherine issued a
ukase in which she declared that Novikov deserved a
44 pitiless punishment for his crimes " (of which the
ukase said never a word), but that the death penalty
would be commuted for fifteen years' imprisonment
in a fortress.

The injustice committed in respect of Novikov was
so obvious that, according to a witness worthy of
credence, Paul I, having liberated him in 1796, after
his accession, was said to have asked pardon for his
dead mother, and even to have knelt before him.

Si non e vero. . . .

Four years' captivity in a fortress cost Novikov dear.
He emerged aged and infirm, and incapable of further
work.

CHAPTER III

I. The nationalist reaction under Catherine II and Alexander I —
Shtsherbatov and Karamzin — The Russian reactionaries and the
French Revolution — The royalist tmigrh. II. The positive in-
fluence of the ideals of the French Revolution — Some opinions.

The story of Novikov proves yet again that Russia
opposed almost insuperable obstacles to the diffusion
of Western ideas, even of the most moderate nature.
Moreover, in addition to persecuting them by means
of the police, the reactionaries endeavoured to attack
them in their essentials, and to deny that their adoption
could be in any way useful. A volume written by
Prince Mikhail Shtsherbatov, The Depravation of
Morals in Russia, is a memorial of this conservative
prohibition. Shtsherbatov considered that Peter I had
gone too far and too swiftly along the path of reform,
and that the " changes " introduced by him were " ex-
cessive." According to Shtsherbatov, Peter I wanted to
obtain in a few years such results as might have been
obtained in the course of normal and natural evolution
at the end of " three generations." The sudden and
forcible transformation of the old Russia into a
European State was an evil, and resulted in the
depreciation of Russian manners.

But there were traces of the European spirit even
in this champion of conservatism. His historical con-
ceptions came from the West ; his theory of the
" science of causes " was borrowed from Hume ; and
he owed something to Rousseau and to freemasonry.

Shtsherbatov's ideas had their effect upon Karamzin.

m

IDEALS 237

This '* Europeanizer " of the Russian language was
at the same time one of the chief leaders of the
political and intellectual conservative nationalists. He
wrote a great History of the Russian State, of which
Pushkin said, in a biting epigram : —

The grace and simplicity of his history
Demonstrate for us with impartiality
The necessity of autocracy
And the beauties of the knout.

Karamzin expounded his ideas in a memoir On the
Old and the New Russia, which he presented to
Alexander I. Like Shtsherbatov and all the other
partisans of the old Russia, he condemned, in this
memoir, the reforms of Peter I, and protested against
his work of " Europeanization." But his especial
antipathy was the " liberalism " born of the French
Revolution.

Karamzin was in Paris during the Revolution, but
he understood nothing of it, and was not even very
greatly interested in it. It is enough to say that in
his Letters of a Russian Traveller he describes (in
1790 !) the gardens and the works of art to be seen
in Paris, but scarcely remarks upon the fact that the
city was in a state of effervescence. However, having
been to see the National Assembly, he decided with
regret that M its sittings were devoid of all pomp or
grandeur." This indifference was replaced, toward the
end of his life, by hatred of everything connected with
the Revolution, and, as happened to many others, this
hatred was extended to the West in general. A fervent
zapadnik in his youth, he became one of the heralds
of absolute nationalism.

This complete change of face was to be observed in
other Russian thinkers, some of whom were anterior to
Karamzin. We know what an effect the French Revolu-
tion produced in Russia. But its effect in the domain
of ideas — of which effect Karamzin affords us only a
poor example— was far more extensive, indeed almost

238 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

incalculable. Some of its results were immediate, while
others were more general and more remote.

At first the Revolution could affect only the upper
classes. The masses of the people knew nothing about
it. By the Russian aristocracy it was accepted almost
as it was accepted by the French aristocracy. Some
of them applauded it. Count Paul Stroganov, among
others, who was in Paris at the beginning of the
Revolution, was present at the sessions of the National
Assembly, and posed as a true Jacobin, declaring that
" the happiest day in his life would be that on which
he should see a similar revolution in Russia." In
Petersburg the fall of the Bastille was celebrated ;
Grand Dukes declared themselves the partisans of the
Republic. But this enthusiasm did not last.

Catherine II was the first to understand that the intro-
duction of the principles and procedures of the French
Revolution would be dangerous to the monarchy and its
nobility, and she began to oppose them, taking no
pains to restrain the expression of the anger with which
she regarded the " hydra with twelve hundred heads "
(the National Assembly), the " monster who sought
to be king " (Egalit6), and the M asses of liberty "
(the members of the National Assembly). In 1780
Catherine said, with pride : M In my country every
one is free to speak his mind." After the fall of the
monarchy in France she suppressed the toleration
hitherto enjoyed by the freethinkers and French
philosophers whom she had so greatly admired, and
asserted that " in publishing the Encyclopedia Diderot
and d'Alembert had two objects : firstly, the destruc-
tion of Christianity ; secondly, the destruction of
monarchies." She ordered Russians resident in France
to leave that impious country without delay, expelled
the French residing in Russia, and prohibited, firstly,
the sale of the Encyclopedia, and then that of any
French book. This prohibition became even more
stringent under Paul I. After the brief phase of
liberalism under Alexander I it was revived and ex-

IDEALS

tended by the Government of Nicolas I ; not only
French books, but all foreign books whatsoever were
proscribed. A strict censorship was instituted for all
books imported into the country, and this system is
still in force to-day : a foreign publication cannot enter
Russia until it has passed the " Central Committee
of the Foreign Censorship."

As for the interdict placed upon the residence of
French subjects in Russia, this was abolished soon
afterwards in favour of the emigres, who were well
received by the Russian aristocrats and reactionaries,
and by the Government also, some being even
appointed to administrative posts.

With the Royalists and Jesuits, for they too were
readily welcomed, the Catholic propaganda made its
way into Russia. During the early years of the nine-
teenth century numbers of Russians became Catholics,
which induced Joseph de Maistre to remark " that the
adhesion of the mind to the Catholic faith is a very
speedy matter in Russia, and the conversions to
Catholicism are remarkable, as much for the number of
persons converted as for the worldly position which
they occupy."

The majority of these " conversions " were only
ephemeral, and were due to a desire to be in the
fashion, as a contemporary assures us, many persons
(especially women) having been converted merely by
following the prevailing current, and returning to the
bosom of the Orthodox Church as soon as it ebbed. In
1 82 1 the Jesuits were expelled, and the Catholic
proselytism exercised by the emigres came to an end.

However, this proselytism left traces — not extensive,
but profound — in the heart of Russian society ; and
from time to time extremely interesting cases of con-
version to Catholicism occurred, notably that of
Tshaadaev.

But before speaking of Tshaadaev I must say some-
thing more of the positive effect of the French Revo-
lution.

240 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

II

I have already explained to my readers the immediate
effects of the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars
upon the political movement then developing in Russia.
But the ideological influence of the French Revolution
exceeded the limits of these immediate effects, and has
survived until our own days.

Even to-day in Russia the great Revolution of 1789
is for some an object of hatred, for others an object
of admiration. One may say that the attitude which
this or that Russian politician assumes toward the revo-
lutionary past of France, and his manner of appreci-
ating it, will in a very great measure enable us to
estimate his own opinions. In my Russia and the
Great War I have cited the declaration made from the
tribune of the late Duma (1909) by the deputy Markov,
leader of the Right, to the effect that " the French
Revolution is the most odious and contemptible act
of modern history," and that " the Republic means
the reign of male and female prostitutes." This is
not merely the personal opinion of Markov himself ;
it is that of all the Russian reactionaries, some of whom
go to such lengths in their hatred of republican France,
the home of the Revolution, that even during the present
war they have expressed a desire that France should
be crushed by Germany, the home of monarchy and
conservatism.

The Russian democrats, on the contrary, love France
precisely because she is the incarnation of revolutionary
tradition. A true cult for the French Revolution exists
among the democratic elements in Russia. Even as a
schoolboy the young Russian indulges in this cult,
although the conservatives do their best to inspire him
with aversion for the traditions of 1789. I have before
me the Memoirs of a Russian lady, in which she de-
scribes the impressions received during a course of
lectures on French history which were delivered by
one of the professors of the Moscow girls' school at
which she was a pupil.

IDEALS 241

"... To-day our professor began to tell us about
the French Revolution. After drawing the general out-
lines of the condition of France and the mentality of
the French on the eve of the Revolution, he described
the men of the Revolution. He began with Mirabeau.
My God, what a wonderful man was this Mirabeau !
... It was a beautiful day of spring when Mirabeau
quitted this life. He gave orders for the window to
be opened. The sound of the bells entered his room.
And in the street the urchins were crying : ' Treachery
of Count Mirabeau ! ' . . . Oh, why, why did he end
like that? Great men should make a different ending !
. . . After Mirabeau, Marat. His severity frightens
me. Everything about Marat is powerful and dis-
tressing. Perhaps I am too small to understand him,
but he gives me the impression of a stupendous force,
which is to be dreaded ! . . . Then the Girondins !
Madame Roland ! What energy, what determination,
what love for her country, what enthusiasm, what faith
she displays ! How proud she is at the moment of
death 1 . . . Vergniaud, that brilliant orator 1 And
Camille Desmoulins I On the eve of execution, in
prison, they gather together, they sing hymns to liberty.
Camille Desmoulins holds in his hand a rose which his
wife has sent him. On the following day, ascending
the scaffold, he speaks to his wife. . . . Ma chirie!
... A few days later his wife, Lucile, stood calmly
before the guillotine awaiting death.

" I cried while the professor was telling us this.
Thanks, thanks, my worthy professor ! You under-
stood so well how to stir and awaken what was sleep-
ing in the depths of my soul. Thanks ! I know
now what is the real meaning of life !

"... When Danton was advised to escape, he re-
plied proudly : ' Can I carry my country with me on
the soles of my shoes? " And he remained. Then, the
execution. He is taken to the Place. He stands before
the guillotine. He speaks to the executioner : ' You
will show my head to the people — it is worth seeing I *

16

242 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

" This is real life ! These are men ! My God,
how I envy them ! What am I saying? I do not
envy them, I quiver with admiration for them, for
the wife of Dcsmoulins. If I had been in her place
should I not have gone to my death as courageously,
following the example of my husband, as she did ! Oh,
surely, surely, I should have gone joyfully to my death !

" I don't remember the moment when the class broke
up. ... I rushed up to the professor and begged
him to tell me of books on the Revolution. He told
me of some. . . . Directly the classes were over I ran
home, and then, without delay, to the library."

This extract from a private and personal diary enables
us to understand better than a long description just
what the young Russian feels about the events and the
men of the French Revolution.

The history of the Revolution has become, in Russia,
the object of a profound scientific investigation ; and
we find the names of Russian scholars among the most
eminent students of the period.

On the other hand, the ideals of the Revolution,
and even its phraseology, have found their way into
the programmes and the practices of our political
parties. For example, among the demands of all the
parties of the extreme Left we find that of the con-
vocation of a Constituent Assembly. The idea of the
confiscation of the landed property of the great seigneurs
for the benefit of the peasants, which forms part of
the programme of these parties, is another inheritance
from the Revolution. One of the favourite songs of
the Russian workers is a " Labour Marseillaise" that
is, a Russian socialist hymn sung to the air of the
French Marseillaise.

The tradition of the French Revolution survives and
finds an echo even in the debates of the Russian Duma,
when Mirabeau or Robespierre is quoted, or the epithet
of " Jacobin " is hurled from one bench to another,
or the Tsar's Ministers are reminded of the fate of
Louis XVI.

IDEALS 243

iWe may therefore say with Dr. Sarolea, the author
of The French Revolution and the Russian Revolution,
and with M. Haumant, that the French Revolution, for
the Russians, " is not a thing of the dead past, already,
remote, but a living actuality."

The love and admiration which the Russian democrats
feel for France, as the home of the Revolution, explains
the amazement with which they sometimes, indeed
frequently, observe the indifference displayed by middle-
class French society as regards the internal political
situation in Russia. To be sure, we cannot say that the
French bourgeoisie has displayed any sympathy for the
Russian reaction ; but it is perhaps too tolerant of it.
I can very well understand that the possibility of
German aggression and the necessity of maintaining
the Franco-Russian alliance has obliged France to be
sparing of her criticism of her ally's policy. Still,
as I demonstrated in my Russia and the Great War,
this policy was harmful, even in its effects upon our
military strength.

On the other hand, the reserve displayed by French
society in the matter of M Russian affairs " is explained
by the fact that France is our creditor. A creditor,
in general, thinks only of the payment of interest and
the repayment of the principal of his loan ; the methods
by which his debtor acquits himself do not greatly
concern him.

What does principally concern the creditor is the
advantages of his investment. Nothing else matters
greatly. Hence, for anything but his money, an in-
difference which often amounts to cruelty. Moreover,
the French capitalists acquire Russian stock by the
offices of the Russian Government, behind which they
fail to perceive the Russian people. But a people and
its government are not necessarily the same thing.
There are moments when a government has need of
money in order to stifle the just revolt of its people,
and a people does not consider that it owes a debt of
gratitude to those who lend money to its oppressor.

244 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

For example, by subscribing to the loan of 1906 re-
publican France prevented the fall of the Tsarist auto-
cracy. Has she any right to feel indignant because
the Russian democrats, against whom she sided, allowed
her to perceive their profound amazement and their
bitter disappointment, even if these were expressed with
violence and scant politeness, as in Maxim Gorky's
letter " to beautiful France," whose hand, he said, " had
closed the path of liberty to a whole people "?

M. Emile Haumant, professor in the Sorbonne, in
his interesting work on French culture in Russia, ex-
plains the resentment which is often displayed by the
Russian democrats by the ideal which they have formed
of the duty of France ; they look to her, he says, for
a " perpetual repetition of the revolutionary gesture."

11 For them we are the dancing dervishes of the
Revolution ! " he says. " Turn, turn, turn for ever I " '

M. Haumant is mistaken. The Russian democrats
reproach France not with refusing to continue the Revo-
lution, but for the aid which they lent the dancing
dervishes of the counter-revolution.

" iWhatever we do, we shall always shock those
idealists who consider that our past condemns us to the
indefinite repetition of the same gesture," says M.
Haumant. But I think M. Haumant himself under-
stands that the past does involve an obligation, and
that the Russian democrats have the right regretfully
to compare the doings of the Frenchmen of the Revo-
lution, who carried liberty into foreign lands on the
points of their bayonets and overturned thrones, with
the action of their descendants, who often bestow money
and security upon autocrats. But in spite of all, there
is, in the democratic circles of Russia, a vast and in-
exhaustible store of sympathy for France. Her intel-
lectual influence in Russia is enormous. Even Gorky,
who " spat blood and gall " into the face of France,
is, like all his political co-religionists, a great admirer
of the French people, of the history of France, so full
* Haumant, La Culture franfaisc en Russie, p. 431.

IDEALS 245

of heroic deeds, and of her noble literature. Interviewed
by a contributor to Le Temps in 1910, Gorky
*' assured him that he never ceased to advise Russian
writers to read the French writers, and again the French
writers, always the French writers."

The affection of the Russian democracy for France
and her heroic traditions has survived even the most
painful tests, not the least of which was the war of
1870. A well-known Russian critic, M. Kranichfeld,
has recently described the aspect of Russian society
during this war, and this is what he says : —

" The war between France and Prussia was of
absorbing interest to the more cultivated minds of
Russia. ' It introduced hatred and discord into our
life,' said a great Russian review, Otetshestvennyia
Zapiski {Annals of the Fatherland), which appears in
Petersburg and enjoys a great authority. ' The father
took arms against the son, brother against brother,
husband against wife, and all this because some
sympathized with France and desired her to win, while
others sympathized with Prussia, and hoped for a
Prussian victory.'

" ' The majority of notable Russians,' says the same
review, 4 are on the side of Prussia. As for the defence
of France, that has been undertaken by the small fry.' "

Another writer of the same period (M. Nikitenko)
states in his memoirs : —

" In the upper circles the sympathy is for Prussia,
while throughout the people there is an equally powerful
hostility toward them."

But it is in the work of our great satiric writer,
Mikhail Soltykov (unhappily unknown abroad), that the
love of France finds its most inspired expression : —

" Poor France ! " he wrote in 1870. " Once again
you become the expiatory victim 1 The world regarded
you as a flame which rekindled the life of humanity,
and now any native of Mecklenburg-Strelitz can with-
out restraint describe you as a collection of imbeciles.
Let him be, this native of Mecklenburg-Strelitz 1 He

246 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

has taken from you all that he lacked. At the end of
the eighteenth century you gaive him the desire for
liberty ; in 1848 you gave him the desire to establish
4 the great Fatherland.' Nevertheless, you are guilty.
You are guilty because you were not able to create
'order.' . . . While you were creating liberty the
Mecklenburg-Strelitzer, Jiaving no need to create that
which already existed, thanks to you, preferred ' a
certain narrowness rather than a breadth of principle.'
Under protection of your political and social convul-
sions, he secretly examined the problem, far more
accessible to his intelligence, of the alliance between
dishonesty and imposture on the one hand, and
patriotism on the other, and it must be admitted that
he has solved it in a fairly satisfactory manner (without
exceeding the mean, which is so familiar to him). . .

" Yes, you are guilty, France ! Pursuing aims of
world-wide scope, you have forgotten the existence of
millions of little domestic details, whose accomplish-
ment assures life against usurpations, and forgetful-
ness of which may condemn even the best intentions
to annihilation. The Mecklenbergers, the Hessians,
the Hohenzollerns have understood this better than you,
although, on the other hand, they have not, perhaps,
sufficiently understood that at times, no matter what
care may be given to the petty details, the house may
be built upon the sand, if the general ideas which you
proclaim have not been used as foundations.

" A native of Meiningen, in his paltriness, does not
work out the smallest idea except for his own ex-
clusive use. A dummkopf, on the contrary, casts even
the grandest ideas before poor minds. . . . The Gallic
cock knows how to raise a principle to its true height."

Soltykov was a radical and freethinker. Here is the
opinion of the great Russian philosopher, V. Soloviev.
A Christian, and an enemy, in principle, of the method*.'
of the Revolution, he yet considered that the French
Revolution, and the whole history of France in general,
were of universal significance : —

IDEALS 247

" The period of the great Revolution and the
Napoleonic wars," writes Soloviev in one of his works
{The Justification of Good: Moral Philosophy), "is, if
not on account of its content, at least on account of
the internal tension of popular life and the amplitude
of external action, the culminating point of the national
development of France; it was then that this country
best expressed her universal importance. Of course,
the rights of the man and the citizen were half
imaginary ; and the revolutionary trinity — liberty,
equality, fraternity — was realized in a sufficiently curious
manner. In any case, the enthusiasm of this people
for these universal ideas shows plainly enough that it
was a stranger to any form of narrow nationalism. . . .
Apart from this period, France has always been dis-
tinguished by her universal intelligence and her com-
municative character ; she is acquainted with, and is
anxious to assimilate, the ideas of others, to give them
a completed form, and then to give them to the world.
This peculiar quality, which' makes the history of France
a brilliant and lucid summary of European history,
is so conspicuous, and has so often been remarked,
that there is no need to insist upon it." l

If from the Christian and anti-revolutionary philo-
sopher we turn to the atheist and anarchist, Prince
Kropotkin, we find in him the same opinion as to the
universal character of the great Revolution.

" The work of the French Revolution," writes Prince
Kropotkin in his work on this subject, " is not con-
fined merely to that which it obtained and that which
it maintained in France ; it extends also to the
principles which it bequeathed to the following century,
to the landmark which it planted for the future. . . .
Whatever nation may to-day enter upon the path of
revolution, it will inherit that which our ancestors per-
.jrmed in France. The blood which they shed was
shed for humanity. The sufferings which they endured

* J. B. Scverac, Vladimir Soloviev. Introduction ct choix dc lextes,
French ed., p. 144.

248 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

they bore for the whole of humanity. Their struggles,
and the ideas which they put forward, and the clash
of these ideas — all this is the inheritance of humanity." »
Thus, when the Russian democrats adopt the ideals
of the French Revolution, they make common cause with
humanity itself.

1 P. Kropotkin, La Grande Revolution, Paris, 1909.

CHAPTER IV

I. Catholic influence in Russia — Tshaadaev and his philosoph y of
history. II. Vladimir Soloviev and the ideal of the Universal
Church.

I

Tshaadaev reminds us slightly of Khovrostinin, for
he, too, was a zapadnik with a Catholic shell, though
this was far thicker than Khbvrostinin's . The latter
had only a veneer of Catholicism ; he used his religion
merely as a standpoint for his criticism's of the old
Russia, while Tshaadaev was steeped in Catholicism.

Born in 1794, Piotr Tshaadaev received a brilliant
education in an aristocratic environment. He studied
at the University of Moscow. Then he took part, as
an officer of the Guard, in the war against Napoleon.
He lived in Petersburg until 1821, enjoying the reputa-
tion of a philosopher. We find him among the future
Decembrists. In 1821 he left the Guard and the salons
of Petersburg and passed two years in solitude. Jn
1823 he went abroad, and while suffering from a
nervous malady he became influenced by the mystic
Jung-Stilling. He had prepared himself for this
influence by the reading of the works of the French
Catholic writers — Joseph de Maistre and Chateaubriand.
In 1826 he returned to Russia, where, after the failure
of the Decembrist movement, the reaction triumphed
" in the atmosphere of the gallows." Again he retired
from the world, passing four years as an anchorite. In
1830 he returned to the intellectual world, taking part
in the debates of the literary and philosophical societies
of Moscow, where two great movements were in process

250 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

of formation : the Slavophile movement and Occi-
dentalism. He was more in sympathy with this last
movement, but his own Occidentalist ideas were based
upon Catholicism, while other zapadniki based them-
selves upon the idealistic philosophy of Germany or
the Utopian socialism of France. Tshaadaev expounded
his opinions in his Philosophical Letters.

The first of these Letters appeared in 1836, in a
Muscovite review, and produced an echo, according
to Herzen's expression, " like that of a gunshot in
a dark night," provoking quite a tempest of indignation
in official and " right-thinking " circles. It was an
indictment of the old Russia, and an ardent hymn of
praise to the glory of Western civilization, the highest
manifestation of which, in Tshaadaev's eyes, was
Catholicism. Of course, a " Russian patriot of German
origin " appeared (a certain Viguel), who did not
scruple to denounce Tshaadaev as suspect of subversive
ideas. Another " Russian " patriot of like origin, Count
von Benckendorf, chief of the gendarmerie (the political
police), undertook to look into the matter, and having
examined the culprit's Philosophical Letter (of which,
no doubt, he did not understand very much), he dis-
covered it to be written with criminal intent.

Nicolas I, at von Benckendorf's suggestion, gave
the order that Tshaadaev should be officially declared
insane, and should be confined to his house, where he
was to be under police and medical supervision. After
a year of this supervision a new decision of the
Emperor forbade Tshaadaev to write.

Despite this absurd prohibition, Tshaadaev did not
cease writing ; he even published a remarkable Apology
of a Madman, in which he defended himself against
the attacks of his adversaries, and against " those whose
cries had unsettled his quiet life, and had once more
launched upon the ocean of human wretchedness his
ship, which had grounded at the foot of the Cross."
But the persecution to which the Government subjected
him made it impossible for him to live and write in

IDEALS 251

tranquillity, and hampered the expression of his ideas.
This is why this great thinker was unable to give to his
country and to the world all that he might have given
under other conditions.

However, what we have of Tshaadaev's is of the
highest interest, as it is the first noteworthy attempt
to construct a philosophy of Russian history against a
background of international history.

.What is this philosophy?

Its principal point, its basis, consists of the statement
of Russia's moral and spiritual isolation in the world.

"It is one of the most deplorable features of our
singular civilization that those truths which elsewhere
are among the most trivial, even in peoples far less
advanced than ourselves in some respects, have yet
to be discovered by us. This is because we have
never gone forward with the other peoples ; we belong
to none of the great families of the human species ;
we are neither of the West nor of the East, and we
have the traditions of neither. Situated, as it were,
outside the times, the universal education of the human
species has passed us by." l

Comparing the history of Russia with that of the other
nations, Tshaadaev found that the difference was not to
the credit of his own country. There is, he said, fox
every nation a time of violent upheaval, of passionate
restlessness, an age of intense emotions and great under-
takings, when the nations bestir themselves impetuously,
with no apparent motive, but not without advantage to
posterity. All societies have passed through these
periods. But " we Russians have gone through nothing
of the kind. First a brutal barbarism, then a period of
gross superstition ; then a foreign domination, ferocious
and debasing, the spirit of which was later on inherited
by the national power ; . . . a dull, gloomy existence,
without vigour, without energy . . . there is the
mournful history of our youth."

* (Euvres choisies de Pierre Tshaadaev (Paris, 1862), pp. 14-15
(French ed.).

252 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Unlike the Russian Slavophiles, Tshaadaev denied
that the past of Russia possessed any value, or any-
moral or educative significance.

" Glance down the centuries we have traversed," he
says, " over all the ground we have covered ; you will
not find a single affecting memory, not a single vener-
able monument, which will speak to you of the past
ages with the power that recalls them in a living and
picturesque manner. We live only in the narrowest
present, without a past and without a future, in the
midst of a dead calm."

Having no traditions of her own, Russia has no
traditions common to her and the rest of European
humanity: "Our first years, passed in an immovable
stupor, left no trace upon our minds, and there is
nothing individual upon which we can base our ideas ;
isolated by a strange destiny from the universal move-
ment of humanity, we gathered none of the traditional
ideas of the human species. Yet the life of nations is
founded upon such ideas ; their future grows out of
these ideas, and their moral development proceeds
therefrom."

These traditional ideas give all the peoples of Europe
a " common physiognomy, a family expression."
Tshaadaev believes that " in spite of the general
division of these peoples into the Latin branch and
the Teutonic branch, into Southern peoples and
Northern peoples,, there is a common tie which unites
them all in a single group, a tie plainly visible to those
who have studied their general history." This " in-
herited patrimony of ideas " gives these peoples " a
certain mental method " which is lacking in the
Russians. M The syllogism of the West is unknown to
us," says Tshaadaev. " There is something more than
frivolity in our best heads. . . . There is nothing pf
that wanton lightness with which the French used to
be reproached long ago, and which after all was only
a facile manner of conceiving things, which excluded
neither depth nor breadth of mind, and which added an

IDEALS 253

infinite grace and charm to intercourse ; it is the heed-
lessness of a life without experience and without foxe-
sight, which refers itself to nothing further than the
ephemeral life of the individual detached from the
species. . . . The experience of the ages means
nothing to us ; periods and generations have gone by
but have brought us no fruit. One would say, to look
at us, that the general law of humanity had been
revoked for us. Solitaries in the world, we have given
nothing to the world, we have taught nothing to the
world. . . . Not one useful thought has germinated
on the barren soil of our country, ; not one great truth
has sprung up in our midst."

To those who would oppose to Tshaadaev's indictment
the age of Peter the Great as the period of Europeaniza-
tion, when Russia entered the family of the Western
peoples, Tshaadaev replies by the following argument,
in which he seeks to emphasize the external and
superficial character of Peter's work : —

" Once a great man determined to civilize us, and,
in order to give us a foretaste of the light, he threw,
us the mantle of civilization ; we picked up the mantle,
but we did not touch civilization."

Tschaadaev then proceeds to explain all these sad
peculiarities of the mind and the history of Russia.
He finds his explanation in the schism which occurred
in the Christian Church, dividing it into the Catholic
Church and the Byzantine Church, to which latter the
Russians adhered.

" .While the edifice of modern civilization was rising
from the thick of the struggle against the vigorous
barbarism of the Northern peoples and the lofty ideas
of religion, what were we doing? Impelled by a fatal
destiny, we were about to seek in miserable Byzantium,
the object of the profound contempt of these peoples,
the moral code which was to educate us. A moment
earlier an ambitious mind (Photius) had removed this
family from the universal fraternity ; it was this idea,
disfigured by human passion, that we accepted at that

254 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

time. The vitalizing principle of unity animated every-
thing in Europe. Everything emanated from this idea ;
everything converged upon it. The whole intellectual
movement of the time tended only to establish the unity
of human thought, and every impulse was derived from
the urgent need of arriving at a universal ideal which
is the genius of modern times."

Only the Russian people remained " alien to this
wonderful principle." It remained outside that other
great European movement: the Renaissance. "By
turning back to pagan antiquity the Christian world
discovered those forms of the beautiful which it had
so far lacked. Secluded by our schism, nothing of what
was happening in Europe reached us. We had nothing
to do with the great business of the world. The notable
qualities with which religion had endowed the modern
peoples . . . those new forces with which it had en-
riched the human intelligence ; the manners which
submission to an unarmed authority had rendered as
gentle as they had at first been brutal ; nothing of all
this took place in Russia. . . . While the world was
entirely reconstructing itself, nothing was built in
Russia ; we remained hidden in our hovels of poles
and thatch. In a word, the new destinies of the human
race were not for us. Christians though we were, the
fruit of Christendom was not ripening for us."

In this extreme pessimism as regards the destinies
of Russia, Tshaadaev was in profound disagreement
with the foolish and hypocritical optimism of the ruling
circles and the reaction, the typical representative of
which, Count Ouvarov, was convinced, and publicly
declared, that the past of Russia was admirable, its
present more than admirable, and its future would
surpass imagination. A veritable religion, a veritable
adoration of the existing system, was proclaimed by
this spokesman of the official Russia.

Ouvarov and others like him believed that they loved
Russia and that Tshaadaev hated and despised her.
Tshaadaev was of the contrary opinion. In his Apology

IDEALS 255

of a Madman, in which, according to his own expression,
he M attempted to discover what are the relations of a
man smitten with insanity by order of the supreme
tribunal of the country to his fellow-creatures, his
fellow-citizens and his God," Tshaadaev holds that
" there are several ways of loving one's country ; the
Samoyed, for example, who loves the native snows
which render him myopic, the smoky yourt in which he
remains hidden for half his days, the rancid fat of his
reindeer, which surrounds him with a nauseating atmo-
sphere, certainly does not love his country after the same
fashion as the British citizen, proud of his institutions
and of the high civilization of his glorious island. . .. .
Love of country is a beautiful thing, but there is one
finer thing, and that is the love of truth. .... It is not
by the road of the fatherland, but by the road of truth,
that we ascend to heaven." l

It must not be supposed that Tshaadaev consciously
intended to belittle and humiliate his country and its
peoples, as his adversaries asserted. On the contrary,
he was convinced that it was by an unhappy chance that
Russia had strayed from the great highway of universal
civilization, and that her place was with the European
peoples. He protests against " the European peoples,
who are strangely mistaken with regard to the
Russians." " They persist in surrendering us to the
East : by a sort of instinct of European nationality they
thrust us back into the East so that they shall not meet
us again in the West," writes Tshaadaev in a letter to
Alexander Turgenev. But for Tshaadaev Russia had
the right of communion with the West. " We are
situated in the East of Europe, that is certain, but we
have never for all that been a part of the East. The
East has a history which has nothing in common with
that of our country. We are simply a Northern country,
and by our ideas as much as by climate we are very far
removed from the ' perfumed vale of Kashmir ' and
the sacred banks of the Ganges." 2

* (Euvres choisies de Pierre Tshaadaev, p. 127. ■ Ibid. p. 141.

256 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Tshaadaev cherished the dream that " a day would
come when the Russians would find a place in, the
midst of intellectual Europe, as we already stand in the
midst of political Europe ; more powerful then by virtue
of our intelligence than we are to-day by virtue of our
material strength."

But in order that this dream should be realized it was
essential that the spiritual and moral unity between
Russia and the West, now shattered, should be re-
established. And as Tshaadaev was convinced that
Catholicism was the best and only true guardian of the
spiritual unity of Europe, he called upon his people
to adopt the Catholic ideal.

It would not be difficult to indicate the weak
points and the errors of Tshaadaev's argument. It
would be very easy to demonstrate that the European
and universal civilization which he so greatly valued
was not merely the work of Catholicism, and that many
of its important and primordial elements were, on the
contrary, born of the conflict between secular society
and the Catholic Church. But to Tshaadaev the
Catholic ideal was in reality of importance not as an
ecclesiastical and religious ideal, but rather as a
political and social ideal. To him it was the symbol
of the unity of European civilization. And he wished
his country to play its part in that unity.

M Believe me, I cherish my country more than any
of you," he declared, addressing his adversaries. M I
am ambitious : I wish to see her glorious. . . . But I
have not learned to love my country with closed eyes,
with bowed head, with shut lips. I consider that one
can be useful to one's country only on condition of
seeing it clearly ; I believe that the time of blind love
is past, that to-day one owes one's country the truth
before all else. I love my country as Peter the Great
taught me to love it. I have not, I admit, that fatuous
lazy patriotism which slumbers amid its illusions, and
with which, unhappily, many of our best minds are
to-day afflicted. I think that if we came after the rest

IDEALS 257

it was in order that we shall do better than the
rest."

And Tshaadaev hopes that Russia's long isolation
and solitude will perhaps be of value to her in the
accomplishment of her future mission, because " the
great things have always come from the wilderness."

II

Half a century later the Catholic tradition founds
expression in the works of another remarkable Russian
thinker, Vladimir Soloviev, whose name I have already
had occasion to mention. His French biographer and
commentator, M. J. B. SeVerac, says of him that
M Vladimir Soloviev deserves to be described as ' the
first Russian philosopher.' And, indeed, until his day
Russia had possessed no philosopher in the Western,
European sense of the word." ' Without exaggerating to
this extent, we may, however, admit that Soloviev was
one of the most original figures in the world of Russian
thought toward the end of the nineteenth century.

Born in 1853 and dying in 1900, Vladimir Soloviev
left behind him, in addition to his philosophical works,
a reputation for great honesty and great moral courage.
Although by no means a revolutionary, he protested
against all kinds of injustice, and he fought for liberty.
When, after the assassination of Alexander II (on the
1st of March 1881), people were waiting for the execu-
tion of the Terrorists, who were accused of this act,
Soloviev made a public speech in which he appealed to
Alexander's successor to pardon his father's murderers : —
" To-day," he said, " the regicides are undergoing
their trial, and they will probably be condemned to
death. But the Tsar has the power to pardon them,
and if he really feels the tie which binds him to the
people he must do so. The Russian people know-
nothing of two truths. Now, God's truth says : ' Thou
shalt not kill.' Here is the solemn moment of justifica-

1 J. B. Severac, Vladimir Soloviev. Introduction et choix de textes,
p. 14 (Paris).

17

258 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

tion or condemnation. Let the Tsar show that he is
before all a Christian. But if he transgresses God'g
commandments, if he enters upon this sanguinary path,
then the Russian people, the Christian people, can no
longer follow him."

For these generous words Soloviev was dismissed
from his post as Professor of Philosophy in the Univer-
sity of Petersburg, " and was forced thereafter to lead
an uncertain and wandering life, his pen providing him!
with a living." '

I cannot here expound Soloviev's philosophical ideas
in all their bearings. What concerns us chiefly is his
historical and religious philosophy and his opinions on
Russia's place in the world and her relations with the
West. But I must not omit to emphasize the fact that
with Soloviev the problems of philosophy in general
were related to his philosophy of history and his ideas
as to the relations between Russia and Europe.

M The necessary and most recent results of the
development of Western philosophy," he writes in his
work on The Crisis of Western Philosophy, " are the
affirmation, in the shape of rational knowledge, of the
same truths which, under the form of faith and spiritual
contemplation, were affirmed by the great dogmas of
the East (of the East of antiquity as regards a portion,
but more particularly of the Christian East). Thus the
most recent philosophy, with the logical perfection of
its Western form, tends to reunite with the contempla-
tion of the East. On the one hand it is based on the
data of positive science ; on the other it joins hands
with religion. The realization of this universal syn-
thesis of the science of philosophy and religion . . ,
should be the supreme aim and the ultimate result ot
the evolution of thought."

We see that for Soloviev even a purely metaphysical
problem becomes a vital question, leading him to. seek
for the grounds of a reconciliation between the East
and the West.

■ J. B. Severac, op. cit. p. 12.

IDEALS 259

As for the distinction between the Eastern mind and
the Western mind, it is described by Soloviev almost in
the same terms as those employed by Tshaadaev, who
defined it as follows : —

" The world was from all time divided into two
portions — the East and the West. This is not merely a
geographical division. . . . We have here two prin-
ciples, which correspond with two dynamic forces of
nature, two ideals which embrace the entire economy
of the human species . In the East it is by concentrating
itself, by recollecting itself, by turning inward upon
itself, that the human spirit builds itself up ; but in the
West it does so by expanding itself externally, by
spreading itself in every direction, by struggling! against
all obstacles. Society naturally constituted itself on
these primitive data. In the East, thought withdrew into
itself, seeking seclusion and repose; it hid in the wilder-
ness, and allowed the social power to become the master
of all earthly possessions ; while in the West thought
projected itself in all directions and embraced all forms
of happiness, founding authority upon the principle of
justice. . . . The East was the first-comer, casting
upon the earth the streams of light that came from the
womb of its solitary meditation ; then came the West,
which, with its immense activity, its eager speech, its
all-powerful analysis, engrossed itself in its labours,
finished what the East had commenced, and finally
enveloped it in its vast embrace." ■

Soloviev is less condemnatory of the past of Russia
than Tshaadaev, because at the outset of his philo-
sophical and literary activity Soloviev came under the
influence of the Slavophiles. At this period he did not
(as did Tshaadaev) demand the submission of the East
to the West, of Russia to Europe, of Orthodoxy to
Catholicism ; he spoke of a V synthesis," and in his
lectures on The Human God he even said that " in
the history of Christianity the Church of the East repre-
sented the divine principle ; the West, the human prin-
* P. Tshaadaev, (Euvres, pp. 137-8.

260 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

ciple. Before it became the fecundating principle of
the Church, reason was forced to divorce itself from
her, in order to develop all its forces in freedom. Once
the human principle had become completely indi-
vidualized and had felt the weakness of this isolation,
it was able freely to enter into conjunction with the
divine foundation of Christendom preserved in the
Church of the East, and, by this free conjunction, to
give birth to spiritual humanity." This was written by
Soloviev in 1879, but ten years later he proclaimed the
supremacy of Catholicism over Orthodoxy, and pro-
ceeded to draw all the practical deductions therefrom.

Soloviev asked himself this question: "What is
Russia's ralson d'etre in the world? " He distinguished
three principal phases of Russian history: the first
phase was the period of the formation of a great
national monarchy ; it ended under the Tsar Alexei,
the father of Peter the Great. Peter opened a new era
in the history of Russia: he sent Russia to school with
the civilized peoples of the West, in order that she might
assimilate their knowledge and their culture. But at
the close of this second phase it was needful to know
what Russia was to do after her years of apprenticeship ;
for " if one was right in asking : ' What is barbarian
Russia to do? ' and if Peter the Great replied correctly
by answering : ' She must be reformed and civilized ' —
then," says Soloviev, M one has no less the right to ask :
What is the Russia reformed by Peter the Great to do?
What is the aim of modern Russia? "

Soloviev is satisfied neither by the reply of the Slavo-
philes nor by that of the simple positivist " patriots."
When the first say that Orthodox Russia is sufficient to
herself, and that she has nothing to do with " the West,
which is in a state of decadence," Soloviev objects that
in speaking thus they reduce the final aim of the history
and the raison d'etre of the human species to the
existence of a single nation.

" A return to the ancient Judaism is proposed to us,"
says Soloviev, "with this difference: that the excep-

IDEALS 261

tional role of the Jewish people in the schemes of
Providence is attested by the word of God, while the
exclusive importance of Russia cannot be affirmed save
on the word of certain Russian publicists, whose inspira-
tion is far from being infallible." ■

As for the " more prosaic patriots," who, " in reac-
tion against the vague and sterile poetry of Panslavism,"
have asserted that it is not indispensable that a people
should bear within it a determining idea, and that one
should simply strive to render one's country wealthy and
powerful, without speculating as to its superior purpose
in the comity of nations, Soloviev believes that **■ this
amounts to saying that the nations live by daily bread
alone, which is neither true nor desirable." Soloviev
holds that " the historic peoples have lived not only for
themselves but also for all humanity, purchasing by
their immortal labours the right to assert their
nationality." " One does not ask what is the historic
vision of the Ashantis or the Esquimaux," but M modern
Russia, which for two centuries has not ceased to
manifest herself on the stage of world-history, did not
quite know whither she was going nor what she in-
tended to do." It is therefore important to know what
idea Russia contributes to the world ; what she has
done and what she has yet to do for the good oif
humanity as a whole.

Soloviev's reply to this question is determined by his
general ideals. A convinced and sincere Christian, he
believed that human history was an incarnation of M the
Word," a gradual realization of the Divine Will in the
life of men. But the incarnation of the Word and the
realization of the Divine Will does not come about by,
the intervention of a single man, but through the inter-
mediation of human society, which should be a
theocracy ; that is, it should be based on the religious
principle and directed by an ecclesiastical authority.

In his original work on Russia and the Universal
Church, which he had to publish in French (in 1889),

* V. Soloviev, LaRussie el VEglise universelle (Paris, 1883), p. 3.

262 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

as in Russia the ecclesiastical censorship would not have
tolerated the publication of a book so imbued with
Catholic ideals, Sploviev compares the two existing
Christian Churches, and likens them to two saints of
whom a charming Russian folk-tale speaks.

These two saints— St. Nicholas and St. Cassien — who
were sent from Paradise to visit earth, saw one day upon
their path a poor peasant, whose cart, loaded with hay,
was deeply mired, and who was making fruitless efforts
to urge his horse onward.

" Let us give a hand to this worthy man," said St.
Nicholas.

" I would rather not," replied St. Cassien. " I should
be afraid of soiling my chlamys."

M Then wait for me, or else go thy ways alone," said
St. Nicholas, and, fearlessly plunging into the mud, he
vigorously assisted the peasant to drag his cart from the
slough .

(When the task was completed St. Nicholas rejoined
his companion. He was covered with mire, and his
chlamys, rent and soiled, was like a poor man's blouse.
Great was the surprise of St. Peter to see him arrive in
this condition at the gate of Paradise.

" -Well, what has made such a sight of you? "
inquired St. Peter.

St. Nicholas related what had happened.

"And you," asked St. Peter of St. Cassien, "were
you not with him in this affair? "

" Yes, but I ant not in the habit of meddling
with what does not concern me, and, above all, I did
not wish to soil the immaculate whiteness of my
chlamys."

"Well, well!" said Peter, "as for you, St.
Nicholas, because you were not afraid to dirty yourself
in helping your neighbour out of his trouble, you
shall henceforth be feted twice a year, and you will be
regarded as the greatest of the saints after me by all
the peasants of Russia. And you, St. Cassien, you may
content yourself with the pleasure of having an immacu-

PIDEALS 263

late chlamys: you will have your festival only in Eeap
Year — only once in four years." l

" The Oriental prays ; the Occidental prays and
works. Which of the two is right? " asks Soloviev,
and replies as follows : —

4' Jesus Christ established His visible Church not only
that it might contemplate heaven, but also that it might
labour on earth and fight against the gates of hell. He
sent His apostles not into solitude and the wilderness,
but into the world, to conquer it and to subject it to the
kingdom which is not of this world ; and He recom-
mended them to be not only as meek as doves, but also
as wise as serpents." 2

From this point of view Soloviev believes that
although in the East there is a " Church which prays,"
there is not a " Church which acts," and which labours
to reform the whole social life of the nations according
to "the Christian ideal." To accomplish the true will
of Christ, the Eastern Church must frankly accept
Catholicism' as its companion and its guide on its
terrestrial journey.

Soloviev very severely criticizes the present position
of the Orthodox Church, in which, he says, there is
no truly spiritual government. The Orthodox Church
is in complete dependence upon the power of the State,
and, in the words of the Slavophile Ivan Aksakov,
cited by Soloviev, it " presents the appearance of a
sort of bureau or colossal chancellery, which applies
to the office of the shepherd of Christ's flock all the
methods of the German bureaucracy, with all the official
falsity which is inherent in them. . . . The ecclesias-
tical government is organized like a secular depart-
mental administration. . . . The spiritual sword —
speech — is replaced by the sword of the State, and
near the precincts of the Church, instead of the angels

' The Orthodox Church celebrates the feast of St. Nicholas on the
6th of May and the 6th of December, and the feast of St. Cassien on
the 29th of February.

» Soloviev, La Russie et VEglise universale (Paris, 1889), p. 4.

264 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

of God, we see gendarmes and police inspectors — those
guardians of the Orthodox dogmas, those directors of
our conscience." l

For Soloviev the situation of the Church was incom-
patible with its spiritual dignity, its divine origin, and
its universal mission. But there was only one means
by which the Orthodox Church could escape from this
situation ; this was to unite with the Catholic Church.
The popular basis of faith is identical in Orthodoxy and
Catholicism. From the evangelical and historical point
of view the Catholic Church should be the guide. By
analysing at length the texts of the Gospel, the deliber-
ations of the Conclaves, etc., Soloviev arrived at the
conclusion that the Roman Papacy was truly charged
by Christ to represent Him on earth, and as "to Christ,
the one Being, the centre of all beings, the Church
should correspond, a collectivity aspiring to perfect
unity," so Orthodoxy should be reconciled with Catholi-
cism and submit itself to the power of the Pope. In
his " spiritual fatherhood " the unity of the human
species will be realized. We shall then accomplish
the will of Christ, who " in uniting all His disciples
in one sole communion did not falter before national
divisions. He extended His fraternity over all the
nations. And if this mysterious communion of the
Divine Body is true and actual, we, in partaking of
it, do truly become brothers, without any distinction of
race or nationality." 2

Thus, by re-uniting itself with Catholicism, the
Orthodox Church and all Russia with it would win
the possibility of participating in the great work of
" the incarnation of the Word," the perfecting of human
nature and society.

■ Ivan Aksakov, Works, vol. iv. p. 84. Soloviev cites from the same
author the story of the shoulder-knots of a general's aide-de-camp,
with which Mgr. Irinee, Archbishop of Pskov, and a member of the
Holy Synod, was decorated under Paul I, which are highly significant
of the relations between Church and State in Russia.

• Soloviev, op. cit. p. 329.

IDEALS 265

Herzen had said of Tshaadaev that in him was in-
carnated " the reasonable and social aspect of Catholi-
cism." One might also say this of Soloviev. His
religious faith, his mysticism even, are directed toward
the problem of the welfare and the happiness of man-
kind.

But neither Tshaadaev nor Soloviev, despite all the
power of their original minds, was able to control and
master Russian thought, which remained, in general, far
removed from the path followed by these two remark-
able philosophers, who were all their lives tormented
by the great problem of the relations between " the
Orient and the Occident," between Russia and Europe,
seeking to solve it by the religious unity of one and
the other.

CHAPTER V

I. The idealist philosophy of Germany — Hegelianism. II. Bielinsky
— The influence of Schelling and Fichte. III. Bielinsky, a Hegelian
of the "Right" and a conservative — His antipathy for French
ideals. IV. His conversion — French influences — Social aspira-
tions.

I

A French poet has said that when one has no support
in heaven, one turns one's eyes toward the earth. This
aphorism is correct in the inverse sense also. .When
one finds no support on earth one turns to heaven again.
The intellectual life of Russia proves this most emphati-
cally.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, after
the Decembrist movement had been suppressed, when
political and concrete aspirations had been violently
stifled, a period of abstract and nebulous speculation
set in. This was the period of the Russian hegelianstvo,
that is, of the cult of Hegel and the idealistic German
philosophy in general. In the place of the late secret
political societies which discussed the French, British,
American, and 6panish constitutions, philosophic
" clubs " were formed, whose members passed their
time in discussing the most complex problems of meta-
physics.

" There is not a single paragraph in all the three
parts of the Logic of Hegel, in the two parts of his
./Esthetic, or in his Encyclopedia, etc., which has not
for some nights been the subject of furious discussion.
People who regarded one another with affection would
have nothing to do with one another for weeks after

366

IDEALS 267

a disagreement respecting the definition of 4 the inter-
cepting mind,' and would regard opinions concerning
1 the absolute personality ' and its autonomous existence
as personal insults. All the most insignificant pamphlets
which appeared in Berlin or the various provincial
cities of Germany, which dealt with German philosophy
and contained even the merest mention of Hegel, were
bought and read until in a few days they were torn and
tattered and falling to pieces."

Such is the artistic description of life in these philo-
sophical clubs as given by Herzen, who himself entered
into it heart and soul.

The influence of the idealistic philosophy of Germany
was very great, and played a very important part in
the spiritual history of Russian society. Its positive
aspect consisted of the fact that it developed, in its
Russian adepts, a love of abstract thought and a habit
of logical argument. Certain of these Russian disciples
of the German school of philosophy became absolute
M monstrosities in their terse dialectic and their luminous
perception of ideas in their essence " (this was
Proudhon's opinion of Bakunin). This habit of
" dialectic " and argument liberated the Russian youth
of the time from many prejudices, and from docile
submission to the naive beliefs of their fathers. Re-
serving for man a supreme position in the system of
the world (*' man is the completion of nature "), German
idealism fortified their sense of human dignity.

But German philosophy had also its negative and
perilous aspects. Fichte, representing the " external
world " as the product of the human mind, compelled his
Russian disciples toward an exaggerated subjectivism,
toward the concentration of all interests in their ego,
and toward the neglect of real life. Schelling, who
completed Fichte's theory by the addition of the poetic
element, and who declared that nature was the work
of the artistic and creative imagination of man, impelled
them toward an exaggerated " aestheticism." Even
Hegel, whose dialectic and philosophy of history were,

268 * S RUSSIA AND EUROPE

for Herzen and his friends, an " algebra of revolution,"
concealed, in his abstract formulae, great dangers for
the Russian mind, as we shall see later on.

iWe must here add that an excessive enthusiasm for
German metaphysics was often, in Russia, accompanied
by an aversion for " French ideas." Happily, this
aversion was only ephemeral, and it was precisely these
" French ideas " which paralysed the action of the evil
aspects of the influence of German philosophy, and
permitted the Russian intellectuals to emerge from its
labyrinth without the loss of their best human feelings.

II

The 'thirties and 'forties of the nineteenth century
were very rich in men and in ideas. All the chief
literary and ideological movements of the century had
their roots in these years. The period is adorned by
a whole Pleiad of illustrious names ; the Slavophiles,
Khomiakov, the brothers Kireevsky, and the brothers
Aksakov ; the zapadniki, Granovsky, Bielinsky, Herzen,
Ogariov, Stankievitsh, and Botkin. Bielinsky was
influenced by the destructive genius of the impassioned
philosophic and aesthetic romanticism of Schelling. In
an article entitled Literary Musings (or Elegy) he
reproduces, almost word for word, the M definitions "
of Schelling, and speaks of " the divine world, immense
and beautiful, which is nothing more than the breath
of a unique and eternal idea (of the thought of the
unique and eternal God), and which manifests itself
in innumerable forms, as a great spectacle of the abso-
lute unity in an illimitable variety. Only the enkindled
sentiment of a mortal can conceive, in its moments of
clairvoyance, how great is the body of this soul of
the Universe, whose heart is fashioned of stupendous
suns, whose veins are Milky Ways, and whose blood
is the pure ether." Only art and poetry can seize the
essential of this universal life ; art, for Bielinsky, is
the expression of the great idea of the Universe in its
infinitely variable manifestations.

IDEALS , 269

Bakunin was formed by this period. It also gave
birth to the Russian novel, and to that literary criticism
which for a long time fulfilled the part of a guide,
not only in the province of literary taste, but also in
that of the social and moral life of the Russian
intellectuals.

All those who wish to obtain a real knowledge of
this astonishing period should begin with a thorough
study of the ideas and the works of Vissarion Bielinsky.
Such a study will be of the greatest interest to those
who wish to understand the formation of the Occi-
dentalist and Slavophile movements and the nature of
those European influences which have affected the
Russian mind.

Endowed with an unusually active mind, and bringing
to the expression of his thoughts and feelings a remark-
able sincerity, sensitive in the extreme to all impres-
sions and impulses, Vissarion the Impetuous, as his
friends used to call him, reflected in his spiritual de-
velopment and in his works the principal factors of the
intellectual life of the period between 1830 and 1850.

At the outset Bielinsky was a disciple of Schelling.
^Esthetic pleasure, in his opinion, consists of " a
momentary oblivion of our ego in a keen sympathy
with the universal life."

The history of humanity is also a series of manifes-
tations of the same divine idea, and " each people fills,
in the great family of the human race, its own place,
which is appointed by Providence." This historical
and national romanticism has not, in Bielinsky 's works,
a democratic or popular character : " Our national
physiognomy is best preserved in the lower strata of
the population, but the superior life of the people is
concentrated principally in the higher strata." It was
to these higher strata that Bielinsky looked for all
progress in Russia, and he already saw signs of such
progress in the " enlightened activity of the well-known
dignitaries, the advisers of the Tsar in the difficult
matter of the administration," who entered " the temples

270 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

of Russian learning," pointing out to the youth of
Russia M the path leading to civilization, based on
orthodoxy, autocracy, and the national spirit " ; in " the
grateful nobility," who gave its children " a solid edu-
cation " ; in the " class of merchants," who " were
rapidly learning " ; in " our clergy," who " took an
active part in the holy work of national education."

With the same optimism Bielinsky considers the past
of the Russian people, and finds it full of favourable
phenomena. As for Russian literature, a consideration
of which forms the principal subject of the Elegy, he
condemns all its satyric or pessimistic works, pro-
nouncing in favour of " pure art," which is equivalent to
saying that he demolishes the principal monuments of
the Russian national genius.

This exaggerated indulgence and this desire to see
in Russia nothing but what was good was obviously
antagonistic to the reality. It is enough to say that
the same Count Ouvarov, Minister of Public Instruc-
tion, who was the " well-known dignitary " mentioned
by Bielinsky, expressed during a visit to " the temple
of learning," namely, the University of Moscow, the
desire " that Russian literature should finally cease to
exist," because he regarded it as a vehicle for liberal
ideas ; he also believed that it was the duty of the
Government " to multiply spiritual barriers wherever
that is possible."

The striking contradiction between the " literary
musings " and the reality could not fail to distress
Bielinsky's mind. He sought a remedy, or rather a
spiritual asylum, in Fichte. Under the influence of
his friend, Mikai'l Bakunin, who later became the father
of anarchism, Bielinsky absorbed the idealism of Fichte.

In a letter to Bakunin he writes that " the ideal
life and real life were always divided in his conceptions,"
but that, enlightened by Fichte, he understood that M the
ideal life is precisely the real life, positive and concrete,
while what one calls real life is only a negation, a
phantom, a nothing, a futility." In another letter

IDEALS 271

(1837) Bielinsky says that "apart from thought all
is a dream, phantasmal ; thought alone is substantial
and real. What are you yourself? A thought clad
in flesh . . . which is the more important : an idea
or a phenomenon, a soul or a body? Is the idea the
result of the phenomenon, or the phenomenon the result
of the idea? Without doubt the phenomenon is the
result of the idea."

Putting these theories into practice, Bielinsky M fled
to his books at the top of his speed," as he jestingly
observed later, seeking to seclude himself in the
" ivory tower " of philosophy.

" Submerge yourself, hide yourself in science and
art," he advises one of his friends. " Do not seek
God in the temples created by man, but seek Him
rather in your heart. . . . Philosophy — that is what
should be the object of your activities. . . . Philo-
sophy alone will give peace and harmony to your mind.
. . . You will not be in the world, but the world will
be in you. . . . Above all, leave politics alone and
beware of any political influence upon your judgment.
Politics, with us in Russia, has no meaning, and only
empty heads can bother themselves with it."

This determined external indifference concealed, as
does all systematic indifference, a conservative
tendency.

" Russia is still in her infancy," he writes later on.
" To give liberty to a child is to destroy it. To
give liberty to Russia, in her present state, is to destroy
her. The liberated Russian people would resort, not
to the Parliament, but to the drink-shop. All Russia's
hope lies in education, not in upheavals, revolutions,
and constitutions."

Russian conservatism is always hostile to France.
Bielinsky forms no exception to this rule.

11 There have been two revolutions in France," he
wrote (in 1837) ; "their result was a constitution,
and behold 1 In constitutional France there is much
less liberty of thought than in autocratic Prussia. And

272 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

this is because constitutional liberty is a conventional
liberty, while the veritable and absolute liberty is
realized in the State in proportion to the success of
education, based on philosophy, on a speculative and
not on an empirical philosophy."

Further on Bielinsky condemns French thought in
the following terms : —

" Down with politics ! Long live science ! In
France, science, and art, and religion have become, or,
to tell the truth, have always been, the instruments of
politics ; this is why there is neither art nor science
nor religion in France. Avoid French science then,
and above all French philosophy ; fear them even more
than French politics. . . . The French deduce every-
thing from the present state of society ; this is why
they have no eternal verities. ... A philosophy based
on experience is nonsense. The French of to-day have
mastered the Germans, but they do not understand
them, because a Frenchman can never attain to uni-
versality. . . . The devil fly away with the French !
Their activities have never brought us anything but
evil. We have imitated their literature, and we have
killed our own. . ,. . Germany is the Jerusalem of
modern humanity. ... To youthful and virgin Russia,
Germany must transmit her family life, her social
virtues, and her philosophy, which embraces the
universe. . . . We must take the initiative in this union
with Germany."

Bielinsky, in his Germanophilia and Gallophobia, went
so far as to praise the reactionary government of
Nicolas J, because it allowed " the products of
German thought " to penetrate Russia, while it pro-
scribed ideas of French origin.

HI

The next phase in the mental development of
Bielinsky was dominated by the philosophy of Hegel,
or, more precisely, by a one-sided and erroneous inter-
pretation of a few propositions of Hegel's. " A new

IDEALS 273

world is vouchsafed to us," wrote Bielinsky, describing
the impression produced upon him' by Hegelianism.
" Might is right, and right is might. No, I cannot
describe to you the feeling with which I heard these
words — it was a liberation. I understood the fall of
kingdoms, the legality of the actions of conquerors ;
I understood that there was no barbarous material
force, no domination by the sword and the bayonet,
that there was no such thing as despotism. And lo,
the mission of the teacher of the human race, the
mission which I undertook in respect of my native
land, appeared in a new light. . ,. . The word reality
has for me become synonymous with the word God.
. . . Blessed is that word which is able to illumine the
very laboratory of the idea of the infinite ! "

As we see, Bielinsky is always tormented by the
same contradiction : the contradiction between the idea
and the reality. And he seeks to reconcile the two
by the law of necessity and the lawfulness of all that
exists. We must admit that the historic philosophy
of Hegel might be interpreted in the sense which
Bielinsky attributed to it. Hegel says that M all that
is real is reasonable, and all that is reasonable is real."
.Which is to say that all that exists may be explained
by the reason, that is, that it has reasonable causes.
And, on the contrary, that which reason foresees as a
logical necessity of future evolution is real, that is
to say, will be realized in the future. On the other hand,
it results that all that exists to-day may and must
perish to give life to something new. Everything now
existing includes the germ of something new ; every
thesis supposes an antithesis.

Bielinsky's error was this : he perceived only a single
aspect of the Hegelian formula ; "all that is real is
reasonable." And this one-sided conception led him
logically to justify the existing order of things as
M necessary " and " lawful." This error was all the
more explicable in that Hegel himself gave this inter-
pretation of his historical philosophy (officially at least),

18

274 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

and approved of the Prussian Government as being
" reasonable."

It is therefore not surprising that Bielinsky should
have tripped over the same stumbling-block. A
sincere, ardent thinker, who " did not change colour
over the most formidable deductions," Bielinsky en-
deavoured to reconcile himself entirely with real life,
with all its violence and injustice and its vileness, with
the " bayonet," the " sword," and the " laboratory,"
and to show that all that existed in Russia was
u reasonable." He had the courage not to keep his
opinions for his own personal consumption; he ex-
pounded them in a series of startling articles. In one
of these articles — which spoke of the anniversary of
the battle of Borodino — Bielinsky represented the
history of the Russian State as the manifestation of the
" mysterious substance " of the M kingdom of the
Infinite." The State is not a human institution, but
a phenomenon of divine origin. The autocratic power
is not derived from election or a contract (as a little
liberal French abbe* would say). This power, "in-
cluding in itself all individual wills," is " a transforma-
tion of the monarchy of the eternal reason." The very
name of monarch is a mystic and sacred thing. The
needs and desires of individuals must not be taken into
consideration, because " an objective world should
vanquish a subjective world." All is reasonable and
necessary. Those who do not think so and revolt
against suffering and injustice are only " voluntary
martyrs " and insane. A poet or an artist should not
concern himself with the contemporary world, which
is only " a beginning without middle and without end."
The moralists are " vampires who kill life by the chill
of their touch, and seek to bind the Infinite within
the narrow limits of their reasoned but unreasonable
definitions."

French literature, being far from this almost super-
human detachment, is violently attacked by Bielinsky.
The works of Racine and Moliere consist, for him,

IDEALS 275

merely of " insipid statements in insipid verse."
Voltaire is "an impudent scoffer at all things which
humanity holds sacred and holy." Victor Hugo and
Eugene Sue are " worshippers of the violence of bestial
passions," " butchers Who pose as tragedians and
romance- writers." George Sand thinks of nothing but
introducing, into literature, the sectarian ideas of Saint-
Simonism, which lead us toward the annihilation of the
holy ties of marriage, kinship, and the family," and
transform the State first M into the scene of a bestial
arid impudent orgy, then into a phantom, formed of
idle words."

It should be noted that at this period Bielinsky had
a great antipathy not only for French writers, but
also for such of the German writers as displayed the
same tendency toward protest and " moralism." Later
he said of Schiller, the German Hugo : —

" Schiller was then my personal enemy ; and I had
the greatest difficulty in restraining my hatred for him
and to keep within the limits of the conventions to
which I was able to subdue myself. .Why this hatred?
Because of his moral and subjective point of view ;
because of his horrible ideal of duty ; because of
his abstract heroism ; because of his conflict with
reality, because of all the suffering which the mention
of his name caused mie."

IV

The conservative and almost servile ideas professed
by Bielinsky greatly displeased the lettered youth of
Moscow ; and some of his friends broke with him,
Herzen being one of them. Happily for Bielinsky
and Russian thought, the period of his M reconcilia-
tion " with reality, or rather his resignation, was not a
lengthy one.

At the end of 1839 Bielinsky, having left Moscow
to live in Petersburg, was then able to observe the
worst aspects of " Russian reality," due to the
"militarized Byzantism " of Nicolas I. And by

276 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

November 1839 h-e was writing to his friend Botkin :
" Piter [the popular name for Petersburg] has an
extraordinary gift of offending anything holy there is
in a man." And he added : " The more I see and
the more I think, the stronger and more intimate my
love for Russia becomes ; but I am' beginning to under-
stand that my affection for Russia is for its essence,
and its form or method of expression is driving me
to despair ; it is filthy, disgusting, repulsive, and in-
human." Early in the following year he wrote to the
same friend that " Petersburg was for him a horrible
rock on which his simplicity ran aground." He con-
sidered that " this was necessary." He suffered at
the rupture with those who were revolted by his theory,
of reconciliation, and he denied his abstract aspirations,
his " life in books." " The French disgust me as
formerly," he wrote, " but the social idea has taken
a firmer hold of me. . . . All that one sees revolts
the mind, offends the feelings. . . . No, the devil take
all aspirations and all superior aims. We are living
in a terrible period; it is our destiny to sacrifice our
personal interests ; we have to suffer so that our grand-
children may live better."

In a letter to K. Aksakov, Bielinsky declared (in
June 1840) that "scientific reality is the reality of
life " — which must be the basis of science. He re-
nounced his recent ideas concerning Russia and her
past ; he declared that " he would pay a great price
for the power to destroy what he had written on those
subjects."

" China is an abhorrent State ; but still more
repugnant is the State in which exist abundant elements
of life, but which is oppressed by chains of iron."
Shortly after this he broke finally with all his old
philosophy.

* I curse my abominable leaning toward reconciliation
with the abominable reality ! Long live the great
Schiller, the noble advocate of humanity, the shining
star of salvation, who emancipated society from its

IDEALS 277

sanguinary and traditional prejudices ! . . . The human
personality is for me, to-day, more than history. . . .
I will not reconcile myself to the insipid reality. . . .
Reality is an executioner. . . . Negation constitutes
our historic right . . . and without it the whole history
of humanity would become a stagnant and foetid pool.
. . . And the enormities which I used to vomit in
my rage against the French, that vigorous, generous
nation, which sheds its blood for the most sacred rights
of humanity. ... Of course, the French do not under-
stand the absolute in art, nor in religion, nor in science,
and it is not their part to do so. Germany is a nation
of the absolute, but a shameful State. ... Of course,
in France there are many brawlers and phrase-makers,
but in Germany there are many hofrdthe, philistines,
pork-butchers, and other reptiles." And Bielinsky
rejoices because "the Germans have at last divined
what the French are," and because, as the fruit of
French ideas, " there has appeared in their country
that noble company of enthusiasts of liberty known
as ' Young Germany,' at the head of which is .Heine,
such a wonderful and beautiful personality."

In 1 84 1 Bielinsky amended his Hegelianism. "I
have been suspecting for a long time that Hegel's
philosophy is only a factor, however great ; but the
absolute character of his deductions is worth nothing ;
it would be better to die than to adopt them. . . .
The subjective, in Hegel, is not an end in itself, but
a temporary means of manifesting the objective, and
this objective appears, in him, in its relations to the
subjective, as a sort of Moloch, for after a brief adhesion
he discards it like an old pair of breeches. . . . The
fate of the subjective, of the individual, of personality,
is, for me, more important than the destiny of the
Universe and the good health of the Chinese Emperor
— that is to say, of the Hegelian Allgernelnheit . . . .
I thank you profusely, Yegor Fedorovitch," continues
Bielinsky in a bantering apostrophe to Hegel. " I
salute your philosopher's cap, but with all the esteem

278 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

befitting your Philistine philosophy I have the honour
to inform you that if I had the chance to ascend to
the topmost rung of the ladder of evolution, I would
even then call you to account for all the victims of
life and history. . . . Otherwise I would fling myself
from the top of the ladder. I do not desire happiness
itself gratuitously obtained if I am not easy in my
mind in respect of all my brothers by race. ... It is
said that discord is a condition of harmony ; this is
very advantageous and agreeable for the melomaniacs,
but not for those whose own fate is to furnish discord."

Bielinsky explains with a great deal of depth and
subtlety the crisis through which he passed, and the
essential difference between French thought and German
thought : —

" In seeking a solution we flung ourselves eagerly
into the fascinating domain of German contemplation,
and we hoped to create for ourselves a pleasant world
full of warmth and light, a world of the inward life.
We did not understand that this contemplative sub-
jectivism is an objective interest for the German
nationality, that for the Germans it is what the social
sense is for the French. The reality aroused us,"
continues Bielinsky, and he sides with the French :
" The social sense . . . that is my watchword. What
does it matter to me that the Universal lives if the
individual suffers? What does it matter to me that
genius, on earth, inhabits the summits, if the crowd
wallows in the mire? What does it matter to me that
I understand the Idea, that the world of the Idea
reveals itself to me in art, religion, and history, if I
cannot share all this with those who should have been
my brothers in the name of humanity . . . but who
are strangers to me, and hostile, on account of their
ignorance? What does it matter to me that happiness
exists for an ilite, if the majority do not even suspect
the possibility of happiness? Away with happiness,
if it belongs to me alone amid thousands. I want
none of it if it is not common to me and my brothers,"

IDEALS 279

Bielinsky applauded the criticisms brought against
Hegel's conservative abstractions by the Hegelians of
the " Left " ; he regarded these attacks M as the proof
that even the Germans may possibly in the future
become men and cease to be Germans."

Bielinsky's opinion of French literature also under-
went a transformation. He prostrated himself before
Voltaire — * What a noble personality ! " he cried ;
before George Sand also, "an inspired prophet, the
vigorous champion of the rights of women " ; and he
admired the Saint-Simonians. But he retained all his
old independence of thought and judgment ; for
example, he was up in arms against Rousseau, con-
demning his personal life ; while in Auguste Comte
he did not find even *' the traces of genius."

In a letter dated 1847, he says of himself : "Mine
in not a Russian character. I would not be a French-
man even, though I love and esteem the French nation
more than the rest. The Russian character is so far
nothing but an embryo, but what strength and ampli-
tude it contains 1 How stifling and horrible all
mediocrity and narrowness seems to it ! " Bielinsky
regards the spirit of criticism, protest, and negation
as the most precious gift of the Russian mind, and
in respect of his old ideas concerning reality he says : —

" That which exists is reasonable. But a hangman
exists, and his existence is reasonable and real ; never-
theless it is abominable and repulsive. . . . Negation ;
that is my god. In history my heroes are the destroyers
of the things whose time is past : Luther, Voltaire,
the Encyclopaedists, the French Terrorists, Byron (Cain),
etc. Reason is for me, to-day, superior to the reason-
able. This is why I set the blasphemies of Voltaire
above all submission to authority and religion and
society."

This new phase in Bielinsky's intellectual develop-
ment is most completely depicted in his Letter to
Gogol, which will always remain among the most re-
markable models of Russian literature, Gogol, a

280 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

famous satiric writer, had himself condemned all his
ideas concerning Russia, had retracted all the just
accusations which he had made against her ills, and
had exhorted the thinkers of Russia to mystic resigna-
tion, humility, and reconciliation with the Orthodox
Church and autocratic power. Bielinsky wrote him
a crushing reply, in which he stated that " Russia
beheld her salvation not in mysticism, nor asceticism,
nor pietism, but in the success of civilization, enlighten-
ment, and humanity."

At the end of his days Bielinsky began to be influ-
enced by the philosophy of Feuerbach, on the one hand,
and by Fourierism, on the other. But in the spring
of 1848 phthisis, that "malady of occupation" of
Russian writers, brought him to the grave. Death
came in time to save him from persecution. The
Government of Nicolas I, which had no objection to
Bielinsky's Hegelian conservatism, could not tolerate
his later principles, and at the very hour when he
lay dying the gendarmes came to his house to arrest
him. But it was too late.

CHAPTER VI

I. Bakunin, the Germanophile and conservative. II. The Slavophiles
— Their attitude toward the Europeanization of Russia. III.
European element in the slavianophilstvo. IV. The Slavophiles
and the zapadniki. V. Herzen's ideological and moral crisis.

The intellectual and moral crisis undergone by
Bielinsky was reproduced with individual variations in
the case of a great number of his more eminent con-
temporaries. His story is typical. Let us, for example,
examine the path followed in his ideological develop-
ment by the father of anarchism, Mikhail Bakunin.
In his youth he belonged to the same circle as Bielinsky,
over whom Bakunin exerted a very considerable influ-
ence, inciting him to plumb the very depths of the
metaphysical idealism of Germany. But he himself
hesitated before none of the logical results of the
Hegelian philosophy as he understood and interpreted
it. In an article on Hegel, his apology for reality
and his aversion for the French lead him perhaps even
to greater lengths than those of which Bielinsky was
guilty. He speaks with contemptuous irony of the
empirical M philosophications " of Voltaire, Rousseau,
Diderot, d'Alembert, and other French writers, who
had assumed the gaudy and unmerited title of
philosopher. He contrasts the peaceful and anti-
revolutionary Germans with the turbulent and recrimi-
native French. Expounding the difference between the
mentality and the history of the Germans and those of
the French, Bakunin condemns " the furious and
sanguinary scenes of the Revolution," rejoicing that

961

282 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

" the profound religious and aesthetic feeling of the
German people" had saved it from the "abstract and
illimitable " whirlwind which " shook France and all
but destroyed her." Bakunin's reconciliation with
reality was so complete that he sought to justify all
ills and all suffering. M Yes," he writes, " suffering
is good ; it is that purifying flame which transforms
the spirit and makes it steadfast."

At this period Bakunin had very conservative ideas
respecting Russia and the duty of the Russians. He
believed that the real education is that which "makes
a true and powerful Russian man devoted to the Tsar,"
and that M reconciliation with reality in all its relations
and under all conditions is the great problem of our
day." Hegel and Goethe were, for him, " the leaders
of this movement of reconciliation, this return from
death to life." These leaders must therefore be fol-
lowed, and the French ideals which are contrary to
their teaching must be repudiated. " In France the
last spark of Revelation has disappeared. Christen-
dom, that eternal and immutable proof of the Creator's
love for His creatures, has become an object of mockery
and contempt for all. . . . Religion has vanished, bear-
ing with it the happiness and the peace of France.
. . . Without religion, there can be no State, and
the Revolution was the negation of any State and of
all legal order. . . . The whole life of France is merely
the consciousness of the void. > . . ' Give us what is
new — the old things weary us ' — such is the watchword
of the young France. . . . The French sacrifice to
the fashion, which has been their sole goddess from
all time, all that is most holy and truly great in life."

This " French malady," said Bakunin, had attacked
the Russian intellectuals, who " filled themselves with
French phrases, vain words, empty of meaning, killing
the soul in the germ and expelling from it all that
is holy and beautiful." It was therefore necessary
that Russian society should " abandon this babbling "
and ally itself with " the German world with its

IDEALS 283

disciplined conscience " and " with our beautiful Russian
reality."

One of Bakunin's Russian biographers has recently
published a letter written in his youth to his parents.
' The Russians are not French," he wrote ; " they love
their country and adore their monarch, and to them his
will is law. One could not find a single Russian who
would not sacrifice all his interests for the welfare
of the Sovereign and the prosperity of the father-
land." ' If we compare this extreme conservatism with
Bakunin's later opinions, and with his anarchist pro-
paganda, which is too well known to call for mention
here, we shall realize that the moral and intellectual
crisis which Bakunin underwent was even more violent
and more profound than it was in the case of Bielinsky.
But we must not fail to remark that this crisis not
only cured Bakunin of Germanophilia — it also explains
why French ideas were finally triumphant over him.
His transition from political and religious conservatism
to anarchism, atheism, and other " subversive "
doctrines coincides with a radical change in his
way of regarding the conceptions of French and
German thinkers. From a Germanophile and Franco-
phobe he became a Francophile and Germanophobe.
And as though he wished to advertise his change of
front, he signed with a French pseudonym (Jules
Elisard) the first article 2 in which he proclaimed his
rupture with conservatism and his adhesion to the
Hegelians "of the Left."

II

The struggle between various European influences
which has caused the individual development of nearly
all the most remarkable minds of Russia has also
given birth to, and greatly influenced, the two gTeat

1 Cited from M. Kovalewsky's article in the Vicsinik Yevropy, 1915, x.,
Petrograd : The conflict of French and German influences at the end of
the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth,

9 This article appeared in the Deutsche Jahrbiicher, in 1842,

284 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

currents of Russian thought, Slavophilia and Occi-
dentalism.

To study the stavianophilstvo we must resort more
especially to the works of Konstantin Aksakov, who
was, in the words of his biographer (M. Venguerov),
"the militant advance-guard" of the movement. It
was Aksakov who expounded the Slavophile ideals to
the great public, while his co-religionists (the brothers
Kireevsky, Khomiakov, and Samarin) devoted them-
selves to historical, philosophical, religious, and other
studies, and occasionally mitigated the Slavophile
theory. Herzen said of Aksakov that he " was re-
fractory, like every militant, for with a calm and
deliberate eclecticism one cannot wage war." So in
Aksakov we find the simplest, clearest, and most precise
expression of Slavophilia.

" The world has perhaps not seen as yet," says
Aksakov, '•' that universal force, at the service of all
humanity, which it will discover in the great Slav race,
and in the Russians in particular."

For Aksakov, as for other Slavophiles, " Russian
history possesses the value of a sacred history. It
will be read like a hagiography." The docile Russian
people is the chosen people of God ; ¥ the doctrine of
Christ is the profound basis of the life of the Russian
people," and M the history of the people is the history
of the only Christian people in the world."

The Western State was founded on the coercion of
servitude and antagonism, while in Russia the life
of the people is of a totally different character ;
" Russia is a wholly original country, which has no re-
semblance to the European States." In the West the
people has acquired the ideal of the State ; in Russia
it is in love with a moral ideal. The most demo-
cratic States of the West are those which shock Aksakov
the most. In the United States, for example, he finds,
" instead of the people, a State machine composed of
men." The external order of the United States is
brilliant, but " this brilliance is only superficial ; good

IDEALS 285

order prevails there, but it is only the order of a
machine." In other words, the democratization of the
State does not lead to good results. * The Republic
is the people's attempt to be itself the State, to
transform itself, as a whole, into the State ; it has
therefore striven to abandon once and for all the path
of moral liberty and inward truth in order to enter
upon the outer paths of ' statism.' "

Russia took quite a different direction. " The Divine
grace has descended upon Russia, who accepted the
Orthodox faith, while the West followed the path of
Catholicism." Unlike the West, "Russia did not adopt
slavery ; she knows neither slavery nor liberalism. She
is a free country. The West began by slavery, pro-
ceeded with revolt, and boasts of her insolent liberalism,
which is only the insolence of a slave." Law, duty,
and the State, or, generally speaking, an " external
dogma," prevails in the West ; while a free conscience
and the inner truth prevail in Russia, where " the State
has never seduced the people, nor flattered its dreams."
" The West is accustomed to vice. There is a great
difference between a sin and a vice. In ancient Russia
there were sins, but no vices."

According to Aksakov there was, in ancient Russia,
no aristocracy and no paganism. " The State " never
dominated " the soil." Only after the reforms of Peter
the Great did the external norm of the West begin
to subdue the internal norm of Russia. Aksakov
cherished a genuine hatred of Peter the Great. He
even devoted some verses to him, in which he describes
him as follows : —

O mighty genius, O bloodstained man,

Far from the confines of the fatherland

Thou standest erect in the blaze of a horrible glory

With an axe covered with blood.

In the name of utility and knowledge,

Borrowed from an alien land,

More than once thy powerful hands

Were empurpled with the blood of thy people.

286 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

All Russia, all her previous life
By thee was misconceived,
And upon thy stupendous work
Is set the seal of malediction.

Pitilessly didst thou repudiate Moscow,
And far from the people
Thou didst build a solitary city :
No longer could you dwell together.

In another poem, entitled The Return, Aksakov invites
the Russians to return " home **A —

Uprooted by a mighty hand,

We have left our native country ;

We have fled far away, enchanted by a foreign land,

Despising the life of our own . . .

The cloud has lifted ! Before our eyes

Russia has reappeared.

Ended, ended is the aching separation,

The long-desired end of exile has come,

The voices of our country flock into our souls,

And our gaze is fixed, full of love, upon the East.

// is time to turn homeward. Our natal soil awaits us,

Our country, great in its speechless anguish.

Aksakov recurs to this idea of the "■ return " in a
later article : —

" IWe must return to the principles of the native land.
The path to the West is a false track ; it is shameful
to follow it. Russians must be Russians, must take
a Russian path, the path of faith, submission, and
the inner life. . . . We must liberate ourselves wholly
from the West, from its principles as well as its
tendencies, its habits, and its morals ... in a word,
from all that bears the imprint of its mind."

The social and political life of Russia must not be
based upon a Constitution of the European type, but
on a moral understanding between the Government
and the people. "To the Government, unlimited State
authority ; to the people, full moral liberty. To
the Government, the right to act and consequently to

IDEALS 287

legislate ; to the people, the right to judge, and there-
fore to speak."

An " Assembly of the Soil " (Zemsky Sobor) con-
voked by the Government, and having a consultative
voice ; such was the only kind of " Constitution "
admitted by Aksakov.

" We shall be told," he writes, *' that the people
and the authorities may betray one another ; there-
fore a guarantee is necessary ! — No, no guarantee is
necessary I A guarantee is an evil. When a guarantee
is necessary nothing is well ; let life disappear rather
when nothing is well."

Regarding the manifestations of public opinion and
liberty of speech as the principal right of the
people, Aksakov presents a brilliant justification of
this right : —

" Nothing can be more harmful than the intrusion
of brutal force in moral problems ; the only weapon
of moral truth is free conviction, is speech." Speech
is, for Aksakov, " the only sword of the spirit," " the
banner of man upon earth." " Created by man, even
as sound was created, all imbued with consciousness,
speech animates the visible world and gives a body
to the invisible."

As a rule the Slavophiles of this period were not,
subjectively speaking, reactionaries ; in their nationalistic
and conservative romanticism we find many demo-
cratic characteristics, the chief of which is the
antithesis of the M simple " people and the " high
society " corrupted by Europe.

" The simple people is the basis of the whole social
edifice of the country. Both the source of material
welfare, and the source of inward power and inward
life, and, lastly, the source of the national ideal, reside
in the simple people."

So it is throughout the world. But with us, in Russia,
the rule of the " simple people " is greater than else-
where, because with us '* the people alone is the
guardian of the national and historical assizes of

288 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Russia ; it alone has not broken with the past, (with
the ancient Russia."

Aksakov speaks in very sarcastic terms of the
educated and Europeanized society which he calls
" the public," and which he contrasts with the " simple
people." The scission between the " public " and the
people is due to the reforms of Peter I. Before the
building of Petersburg " there was no public in Russia ;
there was the people." " The public constitutes our
permanent tie with the West, and is only a deformation
of the popular entity," says Aksakov.

In a famous article published in 1857 Aksakov estab-
lished this parallel between the " public " and the people
in Russia : —

" The public imports from oversea ideas and senti-
ments, mazurkas, and polkas ; the people draws its
life from its native source. The public speaks French ;
the people Russian. The public wears foreign clothes ;
the people the Russian costume. The public follows the
Parisian fashions ; the people adhere to their Russian
customs. The public still slumbers when the people
has long been awake and at work. The public works
(usually with its feet on a wood floor) while the people
sleeps, or is already awakening to go to work anew.
The public despises the people ; the people forgive)
the public. The public is only a hundred and fifty years
old ; the age of the people is untellable. The public
passes away ; the people is eternal. In the public
there is gold and dross ; in the people there is gold
and dross; but in the public there is dross in the
gold, and in the people there is gold in the dross."

Alexander II, having read this article, found that
it " was conceived in a bad spirit."

In a poem, To a Humanitarian, Aksakov addresses
these cultivated men and invites them to restore the
ties between them and the people, to '*■ rediscover them-
selves in the people," to '•' submit to the collectivity,"
informing them that " otherwise they are only impotent
egoists, their fair-seeming life is void, their aspirations
futile, and their dreams deceitful."

IDEALS 289

III

It might be supposed that the Slavophile theory —
so essentially nationalistic — was of national origin. But
such a supposition would be erroneous. In reality
the Russian slavianophilstvo is objectively far less
remote from European ideals than its representatives
were personally alienated from the West.

Russian Slavophilia presents a close analogy with
the romantic nationalism of the West. I do not share
the opinion of Schulze-Gavernitz, who seeks to compare
the Russian slavianophilstvo with European mercan-
tilism. Mercantilism was a middle-class theory ; it
appeared for the first time in Russia under Peter the
Great, at the period of the first embourgeoisement . The
Slavophiles were, on the other hand, the desperate
enemies of bourgeois society, and of the bourgeois State
of the Occident. This is precisely why they opposed
the work of Peter I. Their dissertations on the evil
of " written guarantees " and the necessity of a moral
agreement between the rulers and the ruled -were merely
an attempt to embellish their theory of a " paternal
authority," a feudal theory dear to the seigneurs, who
loved to regard themselves as the " fathers " of their
serfs. And it is no fortuitous coincidence that these
ideas were first professed just as serfdom and the
seigneurial right were on the eve of abolition.

Slavophilia is a Russian transformation of that
romanticism which flourished all over Europe during
the first half of the nineteenth century.

" The mass of the public is accustomed to consider
the birth of Slavophilia as a purely original and native
phenomenon. . . . But the intellectual history of Europe
proves that almost every country in its day was subject
to a movement resembling our slavianophilstvo." This
was the case with Bohemia, Poland, Denmark, Sweden,
and above all in Germany, where, " combining their
efforts, romantic poetry and philosophy prepared all
the forces of the Germanophile movement : the idealiza-

19

290 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

tion of the past, fortified by the cult of its memories,
and the predominance of the religious principle in the
legends and the life of olden times, lent its prestige to
a morbid piety and mysticism ; the search after the
providential mission, which is the raison d'etre of the
German people, gave rise to the principle of inflated
nationalism, by introducing the habit of resolutely con-
demning everything that did not harmonize with this
principle. . . . Instead of launching itself into the vast
domain of an advance extending to the whole of
humanity, thought confined itself within narrow limits,
and there struggled as though in chains, denying the
eternal law of the march onward and setting its ideals
behind it. . . . We know what was the lamentable
end of these romantics, with what a religious and
political fanaticism they became imbued, becoming the
faithful servitors of any reactionary government, and
the inspiring cause of all the persecutions inflicted upon
modern thought, which did not bow before their
archaico-nationalist theories." '

The points of contact between the romantic philo-
sophy of Germany and the slavianophihtvo of Russia
are plainly visible. From Fichte the Slavophiles
borrowed the comparison between internal truth and
external truth ; from Schelling they acquired a sort
of contempt for science, to which the German opposed
artistic intuition, which they replaced by " the pro-
fundity of the intuition of the Fathers of the Church,
original and inaccessible to European minds, living and
integral " ; an intuition preserved by the Orthodox
Church and by the " simple people." From Hegel
they borrowed the dogma of the people elected by God
and by Him predestined to a lofty mission ; but while
Hegel reserved this privilege for the German people,
they claimed it for the Russians.

If it were necessary, I could add biographical data
which would tend to prove that the idealism and

* Alexis Vcsclovsky, Western Influences in the New Russian Literature,
pp. 1 85-6.

IDEALS 291

romanticism of Germany had a direct effect upon the
Russian Slavophiles. But I believe this point is suffi-
ciently established.

IV

I must add that the best representatives of Slavo-
philia, while preferring the M inner truth " of Russia
to the " outward truth " of Europe, did not demean
themselves by a blind hatred of Europe. According
to Herzen, Ivan Kireevsky, the theorist of slaviano-
philstvo, was " an admirer of liberty and of the great
period of the French Revolution." Kireevsky himself,
in one of his works, gives a synthesis of the Russian
truth and the European truth. " The love of European
civilization and the love of Russian civilization mingle
at the latest point of their development and become the
same love, the same aspiration toward a living civi-
lization, complete, and embracing all humanity, and
truly Christian."

Later, the leaders of the Occidentalist movement were
of opinion that there were far more points of simi-
larity between the Slavophiles and the zapadniki than
had been supposed. Herzen declared that Slavophilia
and zapadnitchestvo were in reality but a Janus whose
two faces looked in different directions, but which had
but one heart. Herzen even asserted that " the Occi-
dentalist party in Russia will only have the rank and
the power of a social force when it masters the subjects
and the problems which the Slavophiles have put into
circulation."

According to Herzen, Russian society saluted in the
zapadniki " the thought of the West, burning with the
desire for liberty, the desire for intellectual independ-
ence, and the desire for conquest. Through the Slavo-
philes it protested against the B ironic arrogance of
the Petersburg Government, which wronged the senti-
ment of nationalism."

But all these comparisons were made at a later
date ; we may even say that they were made too

292 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

late ; for at the time of their origin the two great
ideological movements of Russia were in violent con-
flict.

The zapadniki of all shades became compacted by
their condemnation of the Slavophiles. The Catholic
Occidentalist Tshaadaev wrote as follows of their efforts
to base their theory upon history and archaeology : —

" Our fanatical Slavophiles may well, in their various
researches, exhume from time to time curiosities for
our museums or libraries, but it is, I think, permissible
to doubt whether they will ever succeed in extracting
from our history anything which will fill the void in
our souls, or concentrate the vagueness of our minds."

Tshaadaev criticized the Slavophilia of his day with
extreme severity : —

" A veritable revolution is taking place in our midst,
and in our national thought ; a passionate reaction
against the knowledge and the ideals of the West ;
against that knowledge and those ideals which have
made us what we are, and of which this very reaction
is the fruit."

Bielinsky was induced by his antipathy for the Slavo-
philes to recommend his friends to break off all personal
relations with them. " I am a Jew by nature," he wrote,
"and I cannot sit at table with the Philistines." He
believed the nationalist propaganda of the Slavophiles
to be useless : " If a nation possesses internal forces
it need not trouble about its national originality : this
will express itself spontaneously and naturally."
Stankievitch, Bielinsky's friend, writes as follows :
"Why trouble about our nationality? We must aspire
to the things which concern humanity at large ; what
concerns the individual will come about despite our
efforts."

But this does not mean that the zapadniki were
cosmopolitans and enemies of their country. Bielinsky
states in one of his articles that " without nationalities
humanity would be only a lifeless logical abstraction,
a word without meaning, a sound without significance."

IDEALS 293

V. Botkin, one of the most interesting zapadniki of
his times, wrote to one of his friends : " The Slavo-
philes have spoken a true word — which is, nationality.
This is their great merit. They were the first to feel
that our cosmopolitanism leads us only to empty argu-
ment and idle babbling.' ... In general they were
justified in their criticism. But their good qualities
are confined to criticism. Directly they tackle a positive
subject they display narrowness of mind, ignorance,
an archaic mentality which is positively stifling, a mis-
conception of the simplest principles of economic and
political science, intolerance, obscurantism, etc." l

The zapadniki could not endure the idealization of
ancient Russia of which the Slavophiles were guilty,
in the first place because it was contrary to reality
and historic truth. Then the reconciliation with the
past too readily degenerated into reconciliation with
the present, which was by no means beautiful under
Nicolas I, for all Russia was groaning under the heavy
sceptre of the Byzantino- Prussian regime. If the feel-
ings of the Slavophiles were injured because their adver-
saries were often lacking in respect for the national
past, the feelings of the zapadniki suffered even more,
on account of the disdain which the Slavophiles professed
for the " false " civilization of Europe and their obsti-
nate belittlement of this civilization.

We must not forget that Europe, as we have already
observed,2 was to the Russian Occidentalists of those
days " the promised land," and they expected so much
of the Europeanization of their country, they hoped
such great things from it, that any attack upon the
object of their cult was regarded by them almost as a
personal outrage.

1 I cite this letter and Bielinsky's letters from an excellent collection
of documents relating to the Occidentalist movement in Russia, pub-
lished in Russian under the title The Zapadniki from 1840 to 1850
(Moscow, 1910).

* See G. A. Alexinsky, Russia and Europe, trans. B. Miall (Fisher
Unwin), pp. 388-528.

294 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

On the other hand— and this is a point of great
importance — the Slavophiles had " friends on the
Right " as their auxiliaries in their conflict with the
zapadniki. These reactionary nationalists, among whom
we must mention more especially Professors Shevyrev
and Pogodin, made very practical use of the theories of
the Slavophiles. Although the best of the Slavophiles
observed a certain moderation in their reprobation of
the Occident, their " friends on the Right " professed
without any mitigation that the West was " rotten,"
that Europe was " carrion," etc.

The official and governmental world was also in-
volved in the conflict, and sought to profit by it.
Although it was shocked by the essential democracy
of some of the Slavophiles, it found their conceptions
far less dangerous than those of the Occidentalists.
The government of Nicolas I was afraid of the example
of Europe. Count Ouvarov stated that " all the Western
peoples are changing their conditions of life," but that
" Russia is still young and virgin," and " must not
acquire a taste for sanguinary upheavals." " Russia's
youth must be prolonged," he declared. " If I could
keep Russia for fifty years aloof from what these theories
are making ready for her, I should consider that my
duty was accomplished, and I should die content."

Ouvarov even conceived a theory of official con-
servatism : Russia does not resemble the European
States, and her life is based on three immovable foun-
dations : autocracy, Orthodoxy, and the Russian nation-
ality. For the salvation of this precious trinity the
Government punished all aspirations toward independ-
ence and progress, and employed against the zapadniki
all the might of its police mechanism.

Official nationalism did much to compromise the
Slavophiles by its adhesion to their ideas, and often
exploited them. The Slavophiles should not be held
responsible for the somewhat indecent procedures of
their " friends on the Right," and I do not share the
opinion of tbo Czech Professor Masaryk, who goes

IDEALS 295

so far as to say that the Slavophiles, " with the help
of German philosophy, erected Uu,aio\ s programme
into a system." ' Nevertheless, the heat of polemics
might have resulted in a certain understanding, and
the zapadniki were possibly not always without justifi-
cation when they accused the Slavophiles of official
and reactionary support, and asserted that they did not
always hold themselves aloof from the nationalist
Extreme Right.

Thus the conflict between the two great currents
of Russian thought became envenomed, and they could
no longer co-exist in a peaceable manner.

V

Occidentalism was no longer entirely homogeneous.
Besides the Bakunin-Bielinsky-Stankievitsh group, the
zapadniki were also represented by the circle of Herzen
and Ogariov and their followers. Herzen has defined
the difference between these two elements as follows : —

" Between our group and that of Stankievitsh there
was not a great deal of sympathy. Our tendencies,
being almost exclusively political, did not please them.
Theirs, being almost exclusively speculative, did not
please us any better. They regarded us as Franch
and fault-finders ; we regarded them as Germans and
sentimentalists."

The French influence in Herzen and his friends was
betrayed in the first place by a genuine cult of Saint-
Simonism, of which we shall speak later on, and for
George Sand. The latter possessed so great and so
beneficent an authority that even Dostoievsky, who had
none too much sympathy with France and French
literature, glorified her at her death.

" Oh, be sure, there will be people who will smile
at the importance which I attribute to the influence
of George Sand," he wrote, " but the scoffers will be

• Th. G. Masaryk, Russland und Eurofa — Zur Russischcn Geschichisi
und Religions Philosophic. Soziologischen Skizzen, vol. i. p. 200, (Jena,
I9I3)-

296 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

wrong. George Sand is dead. But all that made us
feel, at the time of the poet's first appearance, that
we were hearing a new voice, all that was universally
human in her work, all this found an instant echo in
our hearts, in our Russia. We experienced a profound
and intense impression, which has not faded, and which
proves that every European poet or innovator, every
new and powerful thought coming from the West,
inevitably becomes a Russian force." And Dostoievsky
places George Sand among those European writers
who " rising yonder, in the country of blessed miracles,"
have drawn to them, from our Russia, an enormous
sum of thought, of love, of noble impulses, of pro-
found convictions, of life."

The ideas of George Sand and of the great French
Utopian Socialists, to whom the memories of the French
Revolution gave an added prestige, inspired the Russian
zapadniki with a feeling of religious love and admira-
tion. Herzen, speaking of this period in his Memoirs,
states that " he illumined Europe with magical colours;
he believed in Europe, and above all in France."
Another great zapadnik, Soltykov-Shtshedrin, in spite
of all his scepticism (he was a satirist), speaks of
France with touching affection, and states that the
France of George Sand, Saint-Simon, Louis Blanc,
Cabet, and Fourier shed upon Russia the fair light of
hope and the conviction that " the best years of
humanity, its golden age, are not behind us, but before
us."

The influence of French thought upon Herzen's mind
was not exclusive, as he succeeded in combining it
with Hegelianism M of the Left " and the philosophy
of Feuerbach. As for Hegelianism, Herzen appro-
priated only its revolutionary algebra ; that is, the
idea that nothing is immutable, and that every social
condition contains the germs of a radical change.

With an ardent faith in the West in general, and
France in particular, with a faith no less ardent in a
revolutionary cataclysm, Herzen went to Europe. Dis-

IDEALS 207

illusion awaited him there. A brief sojourn abroad
deprived him of all his enthusiasm and all his hopes.
This he declared openly and with entire sincerity. He
confessed that he was ashamed of his affection for
Europe ; that he " blushed for his prejudices." The
first origin of this disillusion was the events of 1848
in France. The general check which the Revolution
received throughout Europe intensified the crisis in
Herzen's mind, which resulted in the publication of
several remarkable works, notably his book From the
other Shore, which is full of a veritable universal
sorrow.

" We were young two years ago ; to-day we are
old," wrote Herzen in 1850, describing the effect
produced upon him by what he had seen in Europe.
From that moment he renounced his old " belief in
words and flags, in the deification of humanity and
the illusion that salvation can only be effected by the
Church of European civilization." For Herzen the West
was dead. It was an old world from which nothing
was to be expected.

Then began Herzen's famous " return to Russia."
He did not return to Russia in person, however, for
until the end of his days he remained a political
imigre, and he died far away from his country. His old
confidence in Europe was replaced by his trust in the
future of Russia.

The Nationalists, the Slavophiles, the conservatives,
and all the other Russian adversaries of Occidental-
ism, sought to exploit Herzen's change of front in
order to combat European ideals and the Euro-
peanization of Russia. Strakhov, the friend of Leo
Tolstoy, has devoted to Herzen quite the half of his
curious work, The Struggle against the West in our
Literature.

" Herzen," says Strakhov, " was the first of our
zapadniki to abjure the West, and he consequently
lost his guiding line. He turned to the West in order
to draw from it wisdom and moral perfection, and

298 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

he understood, after long and patient research, that
he could find nothing stable there, nothing positive." '

Strakhov sought to draw from this a deduction of
a more general nature. In his opinion Herzen, by
abandoning his illusions as to Europe, was continuing
the genuine tradition of Russian literature. " Occi-
dental civilization and ideals of European origin are
not at bottom suited to Russia," says Strakhov. Russia
may borrow from the West its " astronomy and mathe-
matics " ; simple elementary truths, such as " two and
two make four " ; but " as a whole " the spirit of
Europe can be of no service to Russia, who must
follow her own individual path.

" For a long time now — very conspicuously since the
time of Karamzin — every Russian writer of worth passes
through intellectual changes, which in general are fairly
similar. He begins by falling in love with European
ideas, by seizing upon them greedily. Then comes
disillusion, in one form or another, for one reason or
another ; he doubts Europe and feels an antipathy for
her principles. Lastly begins the return homeward,
a love, more or less happy, for Russia, and it is in
Russia that he seeks for the assured destiny, the solid
foundations of thought and life."2

In support of his theory Strakhov cites the names
of Karamzin, Griboiedov, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoievsky,
and Tolstoy ; " all," he says, " have passed along this
road."

These examples differ too greatly to be convincing.
We know that Karamzin, at the end of his life, became
a conservative and anti-Occidentalist. But this fact
cannot be regarded as characteristic of every Russian
writer, because it was due to causes of a general kind
which at that period were in operation all over Europe ;
there was everywhere, at that time, a movement of
reaction, the inevitable result of the events of the French
Revolution. As for Griboiedov, he was by no means

• N. Strakhov, TheStruggle against the West in our Literature, p. 83.

* Ibid. p. 94.

IDEALS 299

an anti-Occidentalist. Although the hero of his im-
mortal comedy, Tshatsky, fulminates against the abuse
of a " vain, servile, and blind imitation of Europe,"
he is not referring to European civilization, but the
false imitation, the caricature of this civilization which
is offered by Russian fashionable society. And he
attacks with even greater energy those representatives
of a pretended " national civilization " who want to
" replace Voltaire by a sergeant-major." In a letter
to a friend Griboiedov complains bitterly of the painful
lot of " an impassioned dreamer in a country of eternal
snows." As for Pushkin, Strakhov's error is even
greater ; Pushkin, to the last day of his too brief
life, remained a convinced Occidentalist ; never did
he condemn European civilization. Moreover, Pushkin
was, without doubt, the most national and the least
nationalistic of the Russian poets. He had a " uni-
versal mind," as Dostoievsky very justly remarked, which
combined a capacity for universal sympathy with the
essential traits of the true Russian character.

" What has the reform of Peter the Great meant for
us? " writes Dostoievsky in his lecture upon Pushkin.
" Has it not meant merely the introduction of European
costume, European science and inventions? Let us
consider. Perhaps Peter the Great undertook his
reform, in the first place, with a purely utilitarian
aim ; but later he certainly obeyed a mysterious feeling
which induced him to prepare a vast future for Russia.
The Russian people itself saw at first nothing but
material and utilitarian progress, but it soon under-
stood that the effort which it was being forced to make
was to lead it farther and higher. We soon attained
to the conception of universal human unification. Yes,
the destiny of Russia is Pan-European and universal.
To become a true Russian means, perhaps, only to
become the brother of all men, the universal man, if
I may so express myself. This division between
Slavophiles and Occidentals is only the result of a
gigantic misunderstanding. A true Russian is as much

300 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

interested in the destinies of Europe, in the destinies
of the whole great Aryan race, as in those of Russia.
. . . Yes, all Russians in future will realize that to
show oneself a true Russian is to seek a real basis of
reconciliation of all the European contradictions."

This quotation is highly typical of Dostoievsky
himself, who, in his best moments, was able to rise
above nationalistic exclusiveness. I may observe in
passing that we cannot draw any comparison between
the defection of Dostoievsky and the disillusionment
of Herzen, for between Dostoievsky the member of the
Fourierist club and Dostoievsky the believer and con-
servative lies an interval of several years' detention in
a " house of death," that is, in a convict prison. His
case is almost pathological. Still more pathological
is the case of Gogol, another instance of which Strakhov
boasts. Just before his death Gogol, suffering from a
mental malady, fell into the power of a monk, de-
nounced all his " liberal " opinions, condemned his
satirical works, burned his manuscripts, and invited
Russian thought to kneel before the political reaction
and the Orthodox Church.

Neither can any logical comparison be drawn between
Gogol's crisis and that of Herzen. Herzen, until his
death, remained the determined enemy of the political
and religious reaction. He adored neither the autocracy
nor the Orthodox Church, and he was convinced that
the " Germano-Byzantine " combination of the two was
one of the chief causes of the popular woes and
sufferings.

And Leo Tolstoy? In the first place no comparison
is possible between him and Gogol or Dostoievsky,.
The latter, impelled toward conversion by exceptional
circumstances, became good servants of the Tsar and
faithful children of the Church. Tolstoy, on the other
hand, broke with the autocracy and with Orthodo
and was persecuted by the one while he was excom-
municated by the other. Moreover, Tolstoy never po
as the enemy of European civilization, as Russia's

IDEALS 301

hostility toward Europe was quite foreign to him. He
thought not of this or that nation, but of humanity
in general. The problems which he attacked were
far more general than those of the Nationalists. They
were the problems of progress, of human civilization
in general, which Rousseau had already discussed in
a different manner.

We may say, therefore, that Strakhbv was mistaken
in interpreting the task of Russian literature as a
" struggle against the Occident," and in degrading
it to the level of a narrow nationalism.

As for the revolution which Herzen underwent, this
was the origin of it : Herzen himself admits that before
leaving for Europe he knew nothing of it, and had
embellished it with " marvellous colours." It had for
him the attraction of a " forbidden fruit." (It will be
remembered that the Government of Nicolas I sought
to withdraw Russia from the intellectual attraction of
Europe, and above all, from that of France.) On
beholding in reality this Europe, of which he had
formed too fair an image, Herzen was disappointed.
What struck him and angered him most was the
crushing of the labour movement in France in 1848
and the fusillades in Paris. What an overwhelming
experience for this man, who was steeped in the
Utopian socialism of France, and who had devoted
himself to its cult with the fervour which only the
Russians can feel for that revelation which reaches
them through the writings of foreigners ! For, as
Dostoievsky said, if I mistake not, " what to a European
scholar is only a hypothesis is an axiom for a youthful
Russian."

Herzen had received the advanced ideas of the West
as absolute dogmas, as axioms. Although he believed
that he understood the dialectic algebra of Hegel, the
true laws of historical evolution escaped him. He was
convinced that all was ready in Europe for the reign
of Utopian socialism (which he, of course, did not
regard as Utopian). His hopes having been deceived,

302 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

he asked himself whether his ideal was false or whether
Europe was incapable of realizing it. We know the
reply : he did not condemn his ideal, but Europe.

For the rest, the ideal of political and economic
enfranchisement professed by Herzen and his friends
was not of Russian origin, but had come to them from
the Occident.

Thus we cannot say that Herzen was an anti-
Occidentalist. If he condemned contemporary Europe,
it was because Europe had failed to keep its promises,
because it remained inferior to its own ambitions.

Herzen did not extend his condemnation to Western
ideas ; he confined it to men and to situations. This
is where he differed so profoundly from many of the
" penitents " and " converts," and from Dostoievsky in
particular, who followed the Slavophiles in contrast-
ing the M Russian ideal " with the " European ideal,"
as two essentially contrary things.

Herzen's " return to Russia " was not an abdica-
tion. In his own words, he " was saved from the
despair which the events of 1848 would have inspired
in him by his faith in Russia." But what was this
faith? Dostoievsky, returning from Siberia, became
the admirer of the people and its prejudices ; he shared
— whether sincerely or not — all its simple beliefs, its
primitive cult for the Tsar, the Orthodox Church, etc.
Herzen did not give way to the superstitions of the
people ; he chose other objects of admiration, notably
the mlr, the rural commune, in which he saw the
embryo of a future " socialization " of Russia.

The real secret of Herzen's " return to Russia "
is revealed by Herzen himself in his open letter to
Michelet. *4 The man of the future in Russia is the
moujik, just as in France he is the artisan."

This aphorism dates from 1851, three years later
than the Revolution of 1848.; so that we cannot say
that Herzen had entirely lost his confidence in Europe.
He was disappointed by the " old " bourgeois Europe,
which he regarded as embourgeoisi to excess ; but

IDEALS 303

he continued to count on the future of working-class
socialism .

It is especially significant that Herzen placed the
Russian moujik on a level with the French artisan, in
whom, for him, the very idea of progress, liberation,
and revolution was incarnated. He did not believe
that the Russian moujik was reduced to a destiny
of submissiveness and resignation. He proposed for
the moujik the aim of the European socialist artisan ;
the end was the same ; the only difference was in the
ways and means of attaining it. Herzen believed that
Russia, thanks to the existence of the rural mir, would
establish the socialist state without previously passing
through the capitalist phase of evolution.

Many more beside Strakhov have sought to rank
Herzen with the anti-Occidentalists, and above all with
Dostoievsky, but in vain. There was nothing of the
narrow-minded nationalist about Herzen. While
Dostoievsky often demeaned himself by anti-Semitism,
Herzen remained always superior to blind chauvinism,
even during the Polish insurrection of 1863. At that
terrible period, when the Russian soldiers and the in-
surgents were battling in the forests of Poland, he
pronounced in favour of the Polish cause, together with
the whole of democratic Europe, although he ran the
risk of alienating a portion of his Russian readers, and
did, indeed, so alienate them.

The mental and spiritual contrast between Herzen
and Dostoievsky is most strikingly revealed in that
chapter of the Diary of an Author in which Dostoievsky
speaks of Herzen with barely concealed irritation, calling
him ironically a " citizen of the world." Well, Herzen
was a citizen of the world in the best sense of the
term, and as such he could not be either anti-Russian
or anti-European. This he understood perfectly well,
and he himself said that for the Slavophiles he was
a man of the Occident, while for the zapadniki he
was a man of the Orient.

CHAPTER VII

I. Dostoievsky and his contradictory qualities. II. The disintegra-
tion of the slavianophihtvo — Katkov, Pobiedonostzev and Leontiev.
III. The Occidental sources of reactionary nationalism in Russia.

I

Dostoievsky was the only Slavophile of the " second
ban " who was able to maintain the ideals of that
school at a certain level. This, perhaps, was precisely
because he was not a pure Slavophile. This he could
not be, for the true Russian Slavophilia is a product
of the seigneurial mentality, while Dostoievsky was
a true representative of the middle-class intellectual
world, the world of the declasses, which constitutes,
according to Klutshevsky's remarkable definition, " the
fluid element of Russian society." And as such,
Dostoievsky united in himself ideals which were often
highly discordant. He condemned the revolutionary
movement as foreign to the popular spirit and anti-
national. He even went so far as to represent the men
of the advance-guard as a sort of herd of swine, in-
habited by demons, capable only of committing insane
actions and of destroying themselves. At the same
time, he remained the admirer of Bielinsky, George
Sand, Byron, and many other extremely " subversive "
personalities. He attacked European civilization,
stating that " the people would never welcome a
Russian as one of themselves." But when the con-
servatives demanded that the " false light " of Europe
should not be allowed to shine upon the people, and
sought to suppress public instruction as the instrument
of Europeanization, Dostoievsky protested against these

•04

IDEALS 306

ideas and proved that they served none but those who
were exploiting them. ' The character of the Russians
differs so greatly from that of all the other European
nations that their neighbours are really incapable of
understanding them." v Russia is a country which
resembles Europe in nothing. . . . How can you expect
Russia to be enthusiastic about a civilization which
she has not created? "

You will often find such aphorisms in Dostoievsky's
works. And in addition to these there are many which
are totally different, and which reject all ideas of a
chauvinistic nature. We have already seen, for example,
that he attributed to the Russians a pan-human and
universal destiny. To this idea he frequently returns.
*'' In Russia," he writes, M the impenetrability and in-
tolerance of Europe does not exist. Russia finds it
easy to accommodate herself to universal influences,
to assimilate all ideas. . . . The Russian is able to
speak all foreign languages, thoroughly seizing the spirit
of them, grasping the finer shades, as though they
were his own : a faculty unknown to the other European
peoples, at all events as a universal national faculty."
This faculty of assimilation is greatly valued by
Dostoievsky, and — which distinguishes him profoundly
from the Slavophiles — he sings the praises of Peter
the Great as an eminent representative of this faculty,
and says of him that " he understood, by the intuition
of genius, the true mission of his country, and the
necessity of enlarging its field of action." We are a
long way from Aksakov and his maledictions of Peter
the Great !

II

But in spite of all the powers of his genius,
Dostoievsky did not exercise a marked influence over
the younger generation of his time, nor over the Pleiad
of the " Slavophiles of the first ban," the brothers
Aksakov, Kireevsky, Khomiakov, and Samarin. In
1862 the "new master of nineteenth-century thought,"

20

306 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

the leader of the " thinking realists " and the positivist
zapadniki, Dimitri Pisarev, described the Slavophiles
as " Russian Don Quixotes," and according to him a
sensible man would not even waste his time in arguing
with them. In his article on the works of Ivan
Kireevsky, Pisarev stated that Slavophilia was a psycho-
logical phenomenon, due to the fact that the Slavs
wanted to love and believe ; now, as in real life
nothing was deserving of love or of faith, they had
to idealize the reality. " Slavophilia is the Russian
Quixotism ; where there are but windmills the
Slavophiles see armed knights." '

Although on its romantic side Slavophilia seemed
entirely inoffensive, even to the Nihilists of i860 to
1870, it contained other elements which were leading
it toward a more and more emphatic conservatism and
toward degeneration. The first Slavophiles were
" archaeological liberals," as some one has called them,
and they demanded the moral support of " the old
Russia " in order to combat the injustice and oppres-
sion to which a Prussianized bureaucracy was sub-
jecting the people ; but their successors were
archaeological, or perhaps we should say archaic,
reactionaries .

This deviation from the old Slavophilia, caused above
all by the development of the general reaction
at the end of the reign of Alexander II and under
Alexander III, involved even those of the first
Slavophiles who had the misfortune to survive. Such
was Ivan Aksakov (brother of Konstantin), who, at
the beginning of the reign of Alexander III, violently
opposed all liberal or democratic elements as a
European intrusion.

The leaders of the Slavophiles described the West
as '■' rotten," and proclaimed the necessity of keeping
Russia untouched by European progress. The partisans
of official nationalism drew practical deductions from
this judgment. Katkov, Leontiev, and Pobiedonostzev
1 D. Pisarev, Works, vol. ii. p. 234 (Petersburg, 1894).

IDEALS 507

constructed a complete 4,', true Russian " system, a system
which was Orthodox, autocratic, and nationalist.1

Katkov, an old disciple of Hegel and Schelling,
a member of the circle of Stankievitch and Bielinsky,
and afterwards (from 1856 to i860) a moderate liberal
and Anglomaniac, was after 1861 the theorist of the
reaction. Russia, he said, had no need of European
reforms ; she needed a strong State, based on national
union, a single language, a single religion, and the
rural mir . No adhesion of Russia to the ideals of
the Occident was possible or desirable. Instead of
striving to Europeanize Russia, an attempt should be
made to Russify all the heterogeneous elements in-
habiting the Empire, which were already affected by
the policy of " Europeanization." The execution of
this programme would mean a desperate struggle
against all the non-Russian and unorthodox nations
(especially against the Poles and Finns) and against
the world of thought (and especially against the
students), the builders of Occidental chimeras, who were
strangers to the true Russia.

Pobiedonostzev and Leontiev expounded more par-
ticularly the " moral " and religious side of the con-
servative and nationalist system. In his Muscovite
Miscellany, Pobiedonostzev attributed a divine origin
to the autocracy. " One of the falsest political prin-
ciples," he wrote therein, " is that of the sovereignty
of the people." Such was the false idea which had
M unhappily been diffused since the French Revolu-
tion " ; the idea that " all power should emanate from
the people and should be subject to the popular will."
Hence was derived M the theory of parliamentarism,
which hitherto has led into error the mass of those
who are known as intellectuals, and which has pene-
trated, unhappily, our crazy Russian heads." "We
find in France an example of the bad effects of
parliamentarism," says Pobiedonostzev. "In France

* Compare Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationalism with Liberty,
Equality, and Fraternity (Tr.).

308 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

nationalist thought is gTeatly demoralized, and the
political sense of the whole nation is enfeebled."
England " is already attacked by the same malady." '
Constitutional and parliamentary institutions and
guarantees — this is the evil from which Russia must
be saved, says Pobiedonostzev, echoing the old Slavo-
philes. But while Aksakov and his co-religionists
allowed the people " liberty of opinion," Pobiedonostzev
opposes this liberty. Abstractions and general prin-
ciples, especially those inculcating liberty, equality, and
fraternity, " with all their applications and ramifica-
tions," are to him detestable. He opposes the Press,
the schools, and all that might contribute to the awaken-
ing and enfranchisement of thought. The only educa-
tion which is truly national and admissible in Russia
consists in " maintaining mankind in rigorous submis-
sion to order." 2 This is the business of the State
authority, which is " great, terrible, and holy."

The " true Russian " conservative doctrines were
most completely expressed by Konstantin Leontiev
( 1 831-91). In his youth he was an adept in " George-
Sandism," which he later declared to be "diabolical."
Then he became a convert to Orthodox mysticism,
and inaugurated the theory of Russian Byzantism.
In the domain of morals he prescribed the abso-
lute submission of the individual to the laws of
the Church — not of the Christian Church in general,
but of the Orthodox Church. For him Christianity was
not love and charity, but the fear of God. Human
nature is corrupt and evil. Only a salutary fear, a
severe discipline, and punishment can correct it. "It
is a lie to represent the idea of God as being that of
love. Faith in God is a yoke which should be borne
with humility. Autocracy is a Divine institution, and
the power of the Tsar should inspire the same fear
in his subjects as that which the power of God inspires

in believers."

s

1 K. Pobiedonostzev, Movk&wskii Sbornik (The Muscovite Miscellany),
pp. 30-31 (2nd ed., Moscow, 1896). ■ Ibid. p. 86.

IDEALS 309

Science and the education of the people are useless!,
because they do not lead to the knowledge of God ;
they are even harmful, because they destroy the
religious conscience. All progress, all novelties are
superfluous and maleficent, not excepting even the
mere knowledge of reading and writing.

Leontiev invented a theory of the ages of humanity.
In Europe, the period of the gTeat migrations of the
peoples was youth ; the Middle Ages was maturity.
At the end of the eighteenth century, with " atheist "
philosophy and the Revolution, Europe entered into
decrepitude and is approaching death. The same fate
threatens Russia ; to avoid it, Russia must be " con-
gealed," must be maintained in a refrigerated condition,
so that she shall be unable to live and develop. Down
with all reforms : away with Europeanization 1 ■

Happily, Leontiev's fantastic ideal was not realized ;
economic evolution, on the one hand, and European
penetration, on the other, have relegated it to the
world of dreams, and Russia, frozen at the end pf
the nineteenth century, is now, in the early years pi
the twentieth century, thawing and beginning' to live
again .

Ill

It is particularly interesting to note that national
and anti-Occidental conservatism owe their existence
very largely to that Europe which their prophets so
hate and detest. We have already seen that the first
Slavophiles were the nurslings of German philosophy.
Those that followed them were even more dependent
upon Europe. Vladimir Soloviev, with his remarkable
knowledge of Occidental philosophy, was able to demon-
strate this fact with ease and in a manner which left
nothing to be discussed.

Thus the Slavophiles of the second ban — that is, of

■ The conceptions of Leontiev and other anti-Occidental reaction-
aries have been excellently described by Professor Masaryk {Eurofa
und Russland, vol. ii. Part IV).

310 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

the Last quarter of the nineteenth century — found their
gospel and their textbook in Danilevslcy's Russia and
Europe, a work which caused a great sensation and
was accepted as essentially original. It depicts the
" types of civilization " which characterize the develop-
ment of the various peoples. No communion is possible
between these " types," which are separated one from
another as though by impassable walls. Hence it
follows that Russia, representing a particular type of
civilization, will never be able to " Europeanize "
herself .

Now this theory, as Vladimir Soloviev has proved,
is borrowed in its entirety from the German historian
Heinrich Ruckert. Danilevslcy's work is merely " a
Russian copy of the German original," asserts Soloviev,
and he proves his accusation by quotations.

" The supposedly Russian and original theory which
was to annihilate all European theories of the science
of history is in reality only a poor copy of a German
theory, published twelve years earlier. Of course, the
theory of the German scientist is neither improved
nor worsened for being restated by a Russian writer,
and by him enlarged by means of pseudo-patriotic
additions. But those conceptions of Danilevsky's which
amount to a denial of our spiritual ties with Europe
are gravely compromised by the fact that in order to
justify them in theory, or rather to seem to do so, he
was forced to borrow one of the second-rate products
of the German mind." •

For the nationalists of the Extreme Right, Katkov,
Pobiedonostzev, and Leontiev, the essential and most
" national " portion of their ideas was provided, as
Soloviev has shown, by the Catholic reactionaries, and
in particular by Joseph de Maistre.

" The Russian disciples of Joseph de Maistre, instead
of speaking in the name of their master, have spoken
in the name of the Russian people, who, however, have

* V. Soloviev, "A German original and a Russian copy" {Works,

AOl. V. p. 294).

IDEALS 311

never or in any manner expressed any sympathy with
the doctrine of the Savoyard squire. In our past and
in our present there are assuredly many things which
correspond with the principles of Joseph de Maistre.
But the truth is that the Russian people as a whole
has never constructed absolute truths out of certain
episodes or characteristics of its life. It has never
made idols of its national defects, or of the necessities
to which it has been subjected. Yes ; individuality
and the social relations are not gTeatly developed in
Russia ; the precepts of law and justice are not yet
rooted in our minds, and because of this (as some
one has remarked) honest men are more uncommon
than saints in Russia. All this is true. The faithful
votaries of Joseph de Maistre believed that things must
be so ; but does the Russian people believe it also? That
is another question." *

As Soloviev very justly observes, the only originality
of the pseudo-nationalist and anti-Occidentalist thinkers
of Russia is that it seeks to clothe European thought
in a tattered Tartaro-Byzantine " kaftan."

1 V. Soloviev, "Slavophilia and its degeneration" (Works, vol. v.
p. 220).

CHAPTER VIII

I. The zafadnitshevstvo triumphant. II. Nihilism — Its European
origin — Dobrolubov and Pisarev — The " destruction of aesthetics"
— Nihilism and anarchism — Pisarev's opinion of the French and
English — The social problem and "aesthetics." III. Tshernyshevsky
— His materialism — The popularization of Occidental ideas —
Tshernyshevsky and Feuerbach — The secularization of Russian
thought — English influences.

I

To-day Slavophilia may be regarded as dead. It is
true that from time to time a Russian politician or
author attempts to exhume its remains and warm it
back to life by means of heady rhetoric. But such
attempts are idle, for the social, economic, and political
bases of the old Slavophilia have disappeared. They
no longer exist either in the interior of Russia, where
bourgeois relations have taken the place of the old
" patriarchal " system, nor in the rest of the Slav world.
This outer Slav world is more fully Europeanized than
Russia herself.

Lately an attempt was made to revive the Slavophile
formulas in order to embellish the Imperialist tendencies
professed in certain circles (happily not numerous) of
the Russian bourgeoisie ; notably the claim to hegemony
in the Balkans and the conquest of Constantinople,
which the speeches of the Neo-Slavophiles represented
as the " communion " of Russia with the Divine Wisdom
(in allusion to St. Sophia of Byzantium). But orators and
audience were well aware how little all this archaic
phraseology was adapted to the tendencies of modern
Imperialism. No one will be able to revive the old

319

IDEALS 313

Slavophilia. Occidentalism remains the sole master of
the battlefield. But the zapadnitshestvo of to-day is
no longer the Occidentalism of Bielinsky's days and
Herzen's. That also has passed through a develop-
ment which has not led it to its death, as was the case
with the old Slavophilia, but which has subjected it to
great transformations.

Let us glance at this latter phase of its history.

II

The great poet Nekrassov has said of the Russian
intellectual : —

What the latest book has told him
Will remain on the surface of his heart.

This means that he will always be in love with the last
idea with which he has made acquaintance, and that
previously acquired ideas will be easily forgotten.

There is an undeniable justice in this observation ;
the currents of thought in Russia often displace one
another with extreme suddenness. The history of
Russian Occidentalism proves this statement, but it
also shows us that in spite of these frequent and sudden
changes of what has for a moment prevailed, something
always remains, I do not say immovably, but it does
remain, more or less stable, and it constitutes the
national peculiarity of our Occidentalism.

The first great turning on the road followed by the
zapadniki was reached at the '* Period of the Great
Reforms," or during the M 'sixties," which formed the
period so named in Russia.

This was the period of " Nihilism." In my Modern
Russia I have described the general character of Russian
Nihilism, and its social origins. But I have not spoken
there of the European influences which have affected
it, and which were extremely potent. One may even say
that the basis of Nihilism is a determined struggle of

314 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

European ideas against the old principles and ancient
forms of Russian life.1

Nihilism had three protagonists: Dobrolubov,
Pisarev, and Tshernyshevsky. All three were con-
vinced Occidentalists . Dobrolubov (born in 1836, died
of phthisis in 1861), a literary critic of high talent,
was the disciple of European authors. One of his
friends said that " Dobrolubov, during the years which
determined the shaping of his intellect, was nourished
upon our great Occidental masters. Books and articles
written in Russian might please him, might delight him,
but they could not possibly furnish him with the know-
ledge and the information which he owed to his reading."

One may object that Dobrolubov was not a true
" Nihilist " and " negator." These qualifications would
apply rather to Pisarev (1841-68). Dead at the age
of twenty-seven, Pisarev wrote only for nine years,
of which four were passed in prison (on account of the
publication of a "subversive" article). In this brief
space of time he succeeded in writing some thousands
of pages which were destined to propagate " Nihilism,"
and pisarev shtshina has become synonymous for
Nihilism par excellence.

kWhat was Pisarev's Nihilism?

In the first place, he rejected what was, for the
zapadniki, the most conspicuous trait of the preceding
generation: idealistic philosophy and "aesthetics."
Pisarev displays a profound contempt for " the husk
of Hegelianism " with which the ideals of Bielinsky,
his predecessor, were covered. But it was especially
" aestheticism " which he attacked. In his efforts to
destroy it he went so far as to describe our gv<
poet Pushkin as a " sublime critin" and asserted that
Beethoven had the same social value as a skilful chess
or billiard player.

' I insist on this point because certain foreign writers have mis-
understood the real nature of Russian Nihilism, and have represented
it as rejecting all European culture in general and all French culture
in particular. M. Haumant has not avoided this error (see pp. 500-3
of hi* Culture frattfaise en Russie).

IDEALS 315

However, M. Haumant commits a sensible error in
comparing Pisarev's Nihilism to negation for nega-
tion's sake, or even to the anarchism of Bakunin.
Pisarev was not by any means an anarchist, and
had no idea of contesting the raison d'etre of the State.
This is clearly proved by his article on the Historical
Ideas of Auguste Comte, in which the parallel estab-
lished by Comte between the political institutions of
continental Europe and those of England is compared
with the parallel drawn by Buckle. Now, Pisarev
ranged himself on the side of Buckle, and wrote as
follows : —

' The Anglomania cultivated in France by the dis-
ciples of Montesquieu and the co- religionists of Guizot,
and with us by a certain school of moralists and pro-
fessors, has excited an extremely strong reaction against
it, which in its turn has gone too far, or at least has
assumed a false direction. Of course, it is absurd to
prescribe the British Constitution as a panacea for all
social evils ; it would be unreasonable to transplant
upon the European Continent institutions under whose
protection all the beauties of a colossal pauperism have
blossomed. It was necessary to denounce, with the
utmost energy, the social maladies of England, in
which these doctrinaires beheld a Paradise. But it
would not have sufficed to content oneself with mere
reprobation. It was enough merely to say, without more
ado, that there was much evil in England, without
inferring that this evil did not exist, or was less, on the
Continent. To set any continental country whatsoever
above England, or even to pass over the enormous
advantages which distinguished England from all other
European countries, would have been to fall into a very
perilous and harmful paradox. ... To convince one-
self of this it will suffice to glance at the gravest evil
of English life — its pauperism. The condition of the
British labourer is extremely painful, it is true. But, in
the first place, the position of the French working-man
is no better ; secondly, in England there are uiconr-

316 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

parably greater resources for a satisfactory solution of
the labour question than in France, or in any other
continental country. These conditions are due to the
fact that the English are in the habit of managing their
own affairs, and enjoy the greatest political and civil
liberty .

" It has often happened to me to read or hear disser-
tations as to the indifference with which a man dying of
starvation would regard political rights and guarantees.
These dissertations are correct if the man is literally
dying of starvation or some other evil ; for example, of
dropsy or phthisis. In this case, indeed, he is not
interested in a Constitution, nor in political meetings,
nor in the Habeas Corpus Act, nor in the liberty of the
Press. But for a man who is living and who enjoys a
certain degree of health, who struggles like a fish under
the ice, who makes every effort to better his position
and to escape from a crushing poverty, the laws and
customs of the country in which he must live and labour
are of great importance." '

As we see, Pisarev has nothing in common with the
anarchists, who are adversaries of the principle of the
State, and for whom all States and all Constitutions are
the same.

In the same article Pisarev compares the political
mentality of the French with that of the English (we
must remember that this article was written in 1865,
that is, in the time of Napoleon III) : —

" The French know how to conquer, but after victory,
when the last barricade has disappeared, they hasten to
put all their hopes in one father or protector, no matter
whom, who, to reward their simplicity, will not fail to
force them, a few years later, to erect new barricades,
which will evoke new hopes and a new ingenuousness.
. . . Until that day the Frenchman is reduced to
repeating : * If the Committee knew ! If the Consul
knew I If the Emperor knew ! If the King knew !
If the President knew 1 ' . . . As for the Englishman, he
* Pisarev, Works, vol. v. p. 432.

IDEALS 317

is familiar with rights, which are necessary to him, to
such a point that without them life itself is impossible
to him." l

To complete our demonstration that Pisarev, what-
ever one may wish to discern in him, was not in any
case an anarchist, I will quote a passage from his
article on The Realists, which is his profession of
faith : —

44 To arouse public opinion and to form conscious
leaders of popular labour, this is to open to the labour-
ing majority the wide and fruitful road of intellectual
development. But to accomplish these two tasks, on
which the whole future of the people depends, it is
^necessary to act exclusively upon the cultivated classes
of society. The fate of the people is decided not in
the primary schools but in the Universities." 2

Wherein does this intellectual aristocracy resemble
the glorification of ,4 holy ignorance " which we find
in Bakunin?

And why does Pisarev fall foul of 44 aesthetics "?
Because he prefers positive science and social utili-
tarianism.

44 We shall try to destroy aestheticism in order to con-
centrate the attention and the intellectual energies of
society upon a minimum of imperious and unavoidable
objectives of primordial importance," writes Pisarev.
These objectives are, on the one hand, the destruction
of all routine and all prejudices, and on the other hand
the moral and material uplifting of the masses. All
this may be accomplished by the aid of the positive and
natural sciences. Pisarev sings a veritable hymn in
honour pf scientific naturalism, and hopes that
44 aesthetics will transform itself into a dependency
of physiology and hygiene, as alchemy has become
chemistry and astrology astronomy." He wrote articles
in which he endeavoured to popularize the theories of
contemporary European 44 naturalists " and to preach
the study of Buchner, Moleschott, Huxley, Tyndall, Car!
1 Pisarev, Works, vol. v. p. 435. a Ibid., vol. iv. p. 140.

J1S RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Vogt, Comte, Darwin, and other Occidental materialists
and positivists.

As for aesthetics and art, one should not make too
much of them, as for the most part they only end in
a loss of time. Now, time should be economized,
especially in Russia, a poor and backward country.

We must admit that Pisarev was to a certain extent
right. The preceding generation of Russian Occi-
dentalists were concerned to excess with abstractions
and big phrases, and all that is implied by the term
" aesthetics." And the big phrases of the Europeanized
seigneurs were only too often glaringly inconsistent with
serfdom and the condition of the people. Nekrassov
well depicted the character of this generation in a poem
describing those who

. . . Wander through the world
Seeking some gigantic task,
Because the heritage of opulent fathers
Has exempted them from petty toil.

Was Russian society to abandon itself to the dreams of
an Italian lazzarone, or to acquire the realistic and
practical common sense of the American? asked
Pisarev, and he himself pronounced in favour of realism
and practical common sense.

In reality, however, there was no resemblance between
the Russian Nihilists, or Pisarev himself, and the typical
Yankee. Despite all their pleas for materialism, despite
all their industrious endeavours to appear " hard,"
" egoistic," and " materialistic," they remained the true
sons of their fathers, idealists of the " 'forties."

Pisarev wished to condemn and annihilate aestheti-
cism. By what means? He "based his realistic con-
ception of science and art," according to his own
admission, on the following idea of Pierre Leroux :
" From my lofty point of view the poets are those who,
from period to period, express the woes of humanity,
just as the philosophers are those who concern them-
selves with healing and safeguarding humanity." In-

IDEALS 319

spired by this idea, Pisarev stated that " one must
always draw the attention of society to. economic and
social problems, systematically opposing and condemn-
ing all that diverts the intellectual energies of cultivated
persons from their mission. If among the objects which
distract them we find art in general, or certain branches
of art, it should be understood as a matter of course that
art also is to be opposed and condemned."

Accused by his adversaries of " vandalism," Pisarev
replied as follows : —

"If you choose to tell me that Beethoven's sonatas
ennoble, uplift, and exalt humanity, etc., I shall advise
you to tell these fables to others, not to me, who will
never credit them. Each of my readers knows, no doubt,
a number of true melomaniacs and profound connois-
seurs of music, who, despite all their love for the great
art, and despite the depth of their musical knowledge,
remain frivolous, pitiable, good-for-nothing creatures."

It is a curious thing that Pisarev's theory, as the
reader will see, resembles Tolstoy's. For Tolstoy also,
at a later period, rejected aesthetics in the interest of the
suffering masses. He, however, went farther than
Pisarev, condemning science also as a useless thing
" which leads men astray."

Vladimir Soloviev used to say that the Russian
Nihilists had a logic all their own, and that they
deduced their social programme from their naturalistic
materialism with the aid of peculiar " syllogisms," such
as the following: "Man is descended from the ape.
Therefore our duty is to sacrifice ourselves for the
happiness of the people."

This pleasantry is not very far from the truth.

To complete the portrait of the " Nihilists " it must
be mentioned that personally they led an extremely
modest and virtuous life. Pisarev, the chief of the
" negators " and the " destroyers," the incarnation of
all mortal sins (it was thus that the reactionaries
regarded him), was an affectionate and respectful son,
and his principal work was dedicated to his mother.

320 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Tshemyshevsky, at the age of twenty-four, wishing to
marry, asked himself what he would do if his fiancee
did not please his mother : could he marry against his
mother's will? And what did he decide? To kill
himself in such a case, as he could not vex his aged
mother, yet could not live without the woman he loved.
But we must speak of Tshemyshevsky separately.

Ill

Nicholas Gavrilovitsh Tshemyshevsky was born in
1828. At the age of twenty-five he had made a name
in literature. From 1855 to 1862 he was one of the
most conspicuous leaders of the intellectual and social
movement in Russia. In 1862 he was arrested for the
" crime " of subversive opinions, and was condemned
to fourteen years' hard labour and life-long deportation
to Siberia. Only in 1883 did he receive the authoriza-
tion to return to " European Russia."

He died six years later, in 1889. Although Pisarev's
influence was ephemeral, Tshemyshevsky 's has endured
until the present day. During the last few years a
number of historians, critics, litterateurs, sociologists,
and economists have undertaken a complete study of
his Works and his ideas, and have arrived at the con-
clusion that " his life belongs to history, and his name
will never cease to recall itself to all those who
interested in the destinies of Russian literature, and
who are able to appreciate wit, talent, knowledge,
courage, and abnegation." •

The prevailing influence in Tshernyshevsky's mental
life was that of the ideas of the European vanguard.
In general, the period of " nihilism " was the period
when the Occidental spirit was completely triumphant
in Russia— the spirit of materialism and positivism,
which under Nicolas I was regarded by State and
Church as contrary to the Orthodox doctrine and the

* G. Plekhanov, N. G. Tshemyshevsky (Petersburg, 1910), p. 78.
This large volume gives a complete analysis of Tshernyshov>
ideas.

IDEALS 321

autocratic system, and which thereby received its most
undoubted titles to success. After the Crimean disaster
the police supervision of the intelligence of Russia was
slightly relaxed ; the educated youth of Russia, by a
wholly natural reaction, hastened to pluck the forbidden
fruit of European thought. Positivism and material-
ism, then known by the common title of realism, became
a powerful weapon of warfare against the religious
prejudices supported by official pressure.

But the materialism' of the Nihilists was not of
uniform quality. In Pisarev it took the form of " naive
realism," everything being proscribed that was not jus-
tified by the immediate statements of the natural
sciences. Of all the social sciences, Pisarev admitted
the necessity only of anthropology, geography, and
statistics. As for philosophy, he regarded it with superb
disdain. Even the materialistic philosophy of Feuer-
bach appeared to him useless and superfluous, fit only
for " those who seek to erect a whole building with
a score of bricks."

Tshernyshevsky did not share these opinions ; he
did not seek to confine thought within the narrow limits
of the exclusively naturalistic positivism of the pisa-
revshtshina. But he agreed with Pisarev as to the task
imposed on Russian writers and scientists. He used
to say that in the West men have the right to serve pure
art or pure science. " Bacon, Descartes, Galileo, Leib-
nitz, Newton, Humboldt, Liebig, Cuvier, and Faraday
worked steadily on, thinking of science in general, not
of what such or such a country, their native land,
required at a given moment. We do not know and we
do not ask ourselves if they loved their country. By
virtue of their works they are cosmopolitan. It is the
same with many of the great Western poets." Tsherny-
shevsky names Shakespeare, Ariosto, Corneille, Goethe.
4 Their names," he says, M make us think of their
artistic merit ; not of any special and predominant
devotion to their native countries."

Matters are very different in Russia. " For the

21

322 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

moment a Russian has only one fashion of really serving
the lofty ideals of truth, art, and science : namely, to
work at diffusing them throughout his country. The
time will come when in Russia also, as elsewhere,
thinkers and artists will devote themselves exclusively
to science and art ; but as long as we are not on the
same level as the more advanced nations there is another
task which must be dearer to each of us : to contribute
according to his strength to continue what Peter the
Great began. This task has hitherto demanded, and
in all probability will demand for a long time yet, all
the moral and intellectual forces of the best endowed
of Russia's children." 1

Tshernyshevsky, who suggested that the immediate
and effective duty of Russian thinkers was to popularize
European thought, and who himself undertook this duty,
showed a much greater breadth of mind in his manner
of fulfilling it than did Pisarev. For example, he did
justice to the philosophy of Hegel. He very truly said
of Hegel that " his principles were extremely ample and
vigorous ; his deductions were narrow and impotent."

More particularly did Tshernyshevsky adopt Hegel's
maxims " that there exists no such thing as abstract
truth " ; M truth is concrete " ; 2 and that " one cannot
judge of good and evil without taking into account the
circumstances in which a given phenomenon occurs."
The Hegelian idea of constant change, caused by the
internal contradictions contained by every phenomenon
and every condition, was also accepted by Tsherny-
shevsky. But he relied especially on Feuerbach, and,
as he himself declared, he sought " to apply Feuer-
bach's fundamental ideas to the solution of various
problems."

The most important of these ideas was that of the
unity of the human being: this implied the rejection of
the old dualistic conception which divided " soul " from
" body," the " spiritual " from the " material " element.

■ Tshernyshevsky, Works, vol. iii. p. 120 (Petersburg, 1907).
* Hegel himself does not always abide by this rule.

IDEALS 323

For Tshernyshevsky, as for Feuerbach, there was only
one " sole human nature, real and unique," and the
M spiritual " life of man was only the " subjective
aspect " of certain objective and material facts.

The recognition of such a principle had capital results
for Russian thought, for it struck a terrible blow at the
Orthodox Byzantine ideology, which saw two principles
in man: the one "celestial," holy, spiritual, the other
" terrestrial," diabolic and material ; an idea which
was the basis of the ascetic doctrine of submission to
the Divine Will, to the power of God and His repre-
sentatives on earth: spiritual and temporal authorities.

The materialistic monism proclaimed by Tsherny-
shevsky was thus a true secularization of Russian
thought. As Plekhanov remarks in his work on
Tshernyshevsky, this was a step in advance compared
with the naive realism of Pisarev and the German
naturalists, Buchner and Carl Vogt, his masters, who
reduced the whole problem of the human soul to the
structure and the functioning of the brain. Plekhanov
asserted that Feuerbach, without realizing it, had
approached the French materialism of La Mettrie and
Diderot, which was less narrow and more profound.
Professor Masaryk discovers in Tshernyshevsky a strong
predilection for English thought, which distinguishes
him from the majority of Russian thinkers. But I
must say that in this Tshernyshevsky was by no means
exceptional, for at that period English thought in
general exerted an immense influence in Russia. At
the risk of shocking some of my readers I will venture
to assert that Russian " nihilism! " is for the most part
the child of English positivism. A Nihilist was almost
always a Darwinian, and the " Buckle-book " (that is,
Buckle's History of Civilization in England) was one
of the textbooks of nihilism ; it was their gospel.
The names of Darwin and Buckle were no less detested
by all Russian obscurantists than that of Feuerbach.

CHAPTER IX

I. Socialism in Russia — Socialism and religion. II. The earliest
European influences — Saint-Simonism in Russia. III. Fourier
and Robert Owen. IV. The narodnilshestvo and Marxism — The
"Bakunists" in Russia. V. " Blanquism " in Russia — Terrorism.
VI. Philosophy and the reality — The present situation of the
narodnilshestvo and Marxism.

I

The literary productions of Tshernyshevsky are closely
bound up with the history of Russian socialism.

One might certainly attribute this socialism to
remote origins. 'Peter Kropotkin believes that Euro-
pean socialism in general may be referred to the French
Revolution, which, he says, " repeated, in its turn, the
work of the English Revolution," and " was the source
of all the anarchist, communist, and socialist concep-
tions of our times." Kropotkin asserts that " modern
socialism has as yet added nothing, absolutely nothing,
to the ideas which were in circulation among the French
people during the year II of the Republic. Modern
socialism has only arranged these ideas in systems,
and has found arguments in their favour, either by
turning certain of their own definitions against the
bourgeois economists, or by generalizing the facts of
the development of industrial capitalism during the
nineteenth century." According to Kropotkin " there
is a direct filiation from the Enrages of 1793 and
Babeuf (1795) to the International." '

If one were to accept this verdict of Kropotkin'*,
doubtless one might trace Russian socialism back
1 Peter Kropotkin, The Great Revolution.

m

IDEALS 325

through Occidental socialism to the French Revolution.
But it is possible to go farther and to find the source
of communistic ideas in Christianity ; not the Chris-
tianity of the Orthodox Church, but that of the first
Christian communities.

In Russia some interesting attempts have been made
to justify the Communist and Socialist demands by
Christian doctrine. Leo Tolstoy invokes the name of
Christ in his attack upon the rights of private property.
Various rural religious sects make the Gospel the basis
of their agrarian communism. Dostoievsky recom-
mended educated Russia to bow before the Orthodox
truth of the moujiks, which, according to him, is
identical with the principle of social justice. Herzen,
although quite without Dostoievsky's respect for Ortho-
doxy, advised enlightened minds to reckon with the
religious convictions of the peasants.

But what is much more curious is the existence of
such ideas, during the last few years, in the Russian
Social-Democratic party. M. Lenin, although a con-
vinced Marxist, proposed, some years ago, that the
party should profit by the religious convictions of the
peasants, for whom the earth is " the property of God,"
and cannot belong to any one. The Socialists should
make use of this ingenuous faith, says M. Lenin in his
pamphlet on the agrarian question, in order to persuade
the peasantry that it is necessary to confiscate all landed
property and to effect the " nationalization of the soil " ;
that is, to declare the private lands the property of the
State. But none of the sections of the Social-Demo-
cratic party cared to adopt this demagogic plan, and
to enter upon a still more demagogic exploitation of
the superstitions of the peasantry.

For the rest, such an artifice was destined to en>-
counter a check, because, for the majority of the
moujiks, " the soil is the property of God " in a sense
entirely special, which has nothing in common with
true socialism. What the peasant regards as the
" property of God " are the estates of the nobles, the

326 RUSSIA AND (EUROPE

great landed proprietors, which he wishes to expro-
priate for his own benefit. God is merely a pious pre-
text for the wholly material aspirations of the peasantry.

Another small group of Russian Social-Democrats
wished to do better than to make religion its auxiliary ;
it meditated erecting socialism itself into a religion.
The leader of this pseudo-socialist " chapel " pub-
lished two volumes intended to prove that socialism is
a religious doctrine, that the Socialist groups are merely
a new Church Universal ; that Karl Marx and Fried-
rich Engels were the successors of the prophets of
Israel and of Christ, and that the dogma of the pro-»
letariat must replace that of God. As for the applica-
tion of his doctrine, the inventor even composed a new
Lord's Prayer, in which the name of God is replaced by
that of the proletariat, and it is to the latter that the
prayer is addressed that " its reign shall come as soon
as possible."

The founders of the " Socialist religion " chose for
its propagation the period following the rising of
1905-6, when the reaction was triumphant in the
political, social, and intellectual domains. They pro-
fessed to be able to cure Russia of the despair into which
she had been plunged by a disastrous war and an
abortive Revolution. Nevertheless, and in spite of the
aid of the celebrated writer Maxim Gorky, they met with
no success, and the only trace which remains of their
enterprise is the ironical nicknames of " the Proletarian
God " and M the Saint " which the Socialist Press
bestowed on the founder of the new pseudo-religion.

This little episode shows that socialism and religion
are in Russia divided by such an abyss that no attempt
to reconcile them' can be regarded seriously.

Nihilism has left behind it such a vigorous ferment
of positivism and materialism, both of which were so
widely diffused by Pisarev and Tshernyshevsky, that the
Russian intellectuals, with very rare exceptions, remain
completely deaf to religious prejudices, and accord a very,
cold welcome to those who seek to reintroduce them.

IDEALS 327

In nearly all European countries, however, some
attempt has been made to combine socialism with
religion. In Austria and Germany the Catholic and
Protestant clergy take part in the labour movement,
and do their best to unite, in a peculiar and extremely
reactionary mixture, the doctrine of the Church and the
aspirations of the labouring masses. In Switzerland
and in England there are among the Socialists believing
and practising Christians who are extremely sincere and
in no way reactionary. We find nothing of the sort
in Russia, where there are no labour organizations
directed and protected by the Church ; one cannot even
cite individual cases in which socialism is combined
with a belief in God. A Russian Socialist is always an
atheist .

II

To return to the share of the French Revolution in
the development of socialism, I should mention that in
Russia at least we do not find that filiation of which
Kropotkin speaks. In Russia we find that men's minds
have been influenced by the political conceptions of the
Revolution of 1789, and not by its "communism,"
which was in general extremely vague. The en-
lightened Russians have turned toward socialism pre-
cisely because the revolutionary tradition has in Russia
been confined to politics. Herzen is the best witness of
this natural reaction ; he experienced it in person.
This is how he describes the diffusion in Russia of the
Saint-Simonian ideals, which may be regarded as the
point of departure of Russian socialism.

"The embryo liberalism of 1826, which was gradu-
ally formed according to the French conceptions, recom-
mended by such men as Lafayette and Benjamin
Constant, and which was sung by BeVanger, lost its
power of seduction, as far as we were concerned, after
the fall of Poland. It was then that a portion of our
Russian youth hastened to make a profound and serious
study of Russian history ; others studied German philo-

328 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

sophy. As for Ogariov and myself, we belonged to
neither party. We were too deeply rooted in dther
modes of thought to abandon them so quickly. Our
faith in a revolution a la Biranger, to be accomplished
sitting at table, was shaken, but we were seeking for
something else, which we could find neither in the
Chronicle of Nestor nor in the transcendental idealism
of Schelling. While our minds were thus struggling
amid conjectures, and efforts to understand, and the
doubts which alarmed us, some of the pamphlets of the
Saint -Simonians fell into our hands, and we became
acquainted with their doctrines and the proceedings
brought against them. . . . We were impressed by
these pamphlets. They proclaimed the new faith ; they
had something to say ; they had good reason to cite
before their tribunal the old order of things which
wanted to try them according to the Code Napoleon
and the Orleanist religion.

" On the one hand, the emancipation of woman,
her access to community of labour, her destiny restored
to her own hands, and union with her as with an equal ;
on the other hand, the redemption and rehabilitation of
the flesh !

" These great formulae involved a world of new
relations between men, a world of health, wit, and
beauty, a world naturally moral and consequently
morally pure.

" .What courage was required to speak openly in
France of emancipating oneself from a spiritualism so
strongly established in the ideas of France and so utterly
absent from the conduct of the French 1

" A new world was knocking at the door ; our
minds and hearts opened to it. Saint-Simonism took
its place as the basis of our convictions, and there, in
all its essentials, remained for ever." *

We see, however, that the essentials of Saint-
Simonism were not, for Herzen, the same as for the
Saint-Simonians themselves. The positive organization
■ A. Herzen, Works, vol. vi. pp. 195-6.

IDEALS 329

of Saint-Simonism, its social and religious constitution,
did riot compel Herzen's admiration. The following
generation of Russian thinkers, the " Nihilists," pro-
nounced with decision against Saint-Simonism precisely
because of its religious character. The force of repug-
nance aroused in the Nihilists by all that savoured of
religion may be gauged by the example of Pisarev, who,
a " popularizer " of the positivism of Auguste Comte,
never forgave him for introducing a sort of religious
element into his philosophy.

44 Having completed a stupendous work," said
Pisarev, " Comte was unable to stop where he
should have stopped ; and he spoiled his own work,
as far as an individual person can spoil that which is
of value to the whole of humanity, by creating a new
religion, of which these have no need, while those can
obtain no satisfaction from it."

In his article on the trial of the Saint-Simonians
Tshernyshevsky protests against their attempt to base
a new social order on an authority of a religious
nature.

" Authority," he says, 44 always prevails in prejudices
and routine, that is, in those matters in which the
reason has no part. Reason is aware of facts, is con-
vinced by proofs, but accepts nothing on authority.
. . . To think otherwise, to believe in the possibility
of an authority to which an established reason would
readily submit, is a thing that no one but a fanatic
could do, and a fanatic inspired by an unjustified belief
in the ancient benefits of the Papacy." Tshernyshevsky
does not accept love either as the basis of the new
society, because love influences men only in rare
moments of exaltation, while in general men are swayed
by calculation, usage, and habits. For him the Saint-,
Simonians were drawing-room reformers.

At the same time, however, Tshernyshevsky con-
sidered that the fundamental idea of Saint-Simonism
was 44 simple and pure," and he expresses his opinion of
it in the following words : —

330 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

11 For the pacification of society it is necessary that
the moral and material existence of the most numerous
and most poverty-stricken class of society should be
ameliorated as rapidly as possible." Tshernyshevsky
declares that " the duty of every good citizen, of
every honest man, is to devote his energies to this
task."

Tshernyshevsky was thus able to distinguish between
the sublime ideal of Saint-Simon and his disciples and
their errors of practice. Their doctrine is regarded
even to-day with attention and sympathy in Russia. It
forms a subject of study and examination in the Uni-
versities. Fifteen years ago, in the faculty of history
and philology at the University of Moscow, when I
was following the course there, it was made the subject
of special lectures. Many textbooks of the history
of economics employed by Russian students devote
chapters to it. Even the most bourgeois scholars
regard it very favourably.

Here, for example, is what Professor Toughan-
Baranovsky, the well-known economist, has to say of
it :—

" The position which Saint-Simon occupies in the
history of thought is so tremendous that it cannot be
exaggerated. We regard him as the most vital social
thinker of the new age ; we believe he has, with a sure
hand, laid solid foundations for the scientific structure
at whose completion many generations have yet to
labour. Saint-Simon's ideas refer not to one isolated
science, but to the whole cycle of sciences relating to
human society. The philosophy of history, sociology,
political economy, and, to a certain extent, jurisprudence
in its broad general principles, all date from Saint-
Simon." '

M. Toughan-Baranovsky also believes that " the
whole of the ' positivist philosophy ' was borrowed by
Comte from Saint-Simon," and that " this remarkable

1 M. Toughan-Baranovsky, Sketches of the History of Contemporary
Political Economy and Socialism, 2nd ed., p. 98 (Petersburg, 1905).

IDEALS 331

thinker, with far more reason than Marx, may be re-
garded as the creator of modern social science."

Ill

Despite this homage, Saint- Simonism has had no
effective influence upon the socialist movement in
Russia. The ideas of Fourier and Robert Owen
hindered its diffusion, and those " Nihilists " who
had been unable to accept the doctrine of Saint-Simon
became the most enthusiastic " Fourierists."

Tshernyshevsky, during his imprisonment, wrote a
novel (What's to be Done?) which acquired enormous
popularity, although, considered merely as literature,
it leaves something to be desired. This novel is full
of " Fourierist " ideas, and it did more to diffuse them
throughout Russia than all the theoretical works taken
together.

4 Tshernyshevsky proposed nothing new," says his
biographer and critic : "he merely made known the
deductions at which Occidental thought had long before
arrived. . . . But he gave the ideas of Fourier a vogue
previously unknown in Russia. He taught them to
the great public." !

Plekhanov observes that, under the inspiration of
Fourier, Tshernyshevsky was the first of the Russian
Socialists to imagine socialist society of the future
organized upon the basis of a very highly developed
technique and wholesale production by gigantic under-
takings. Certain of his successors, who believed, on
the contrary, that the future would see a federation of
small communes and pigmy enterprises, were really
behind him in their ideas, for if socialism is a superior
form of economic organization, it must make use of
the technical victories won by the capitalist world, in-
stead of returning to the small bourgeois ways of the
pre-capitalist era."

But this error was inevitable, because the imagina-
tion always reflects the reality, and a communal petit -
' G. Plekhanov, N. Tshernyshevsky, p. 75.

332 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

bourgeois ideal of socialism was bound to come into
being in Russia, the country of small rural exploitations.

Tshernyshevsky himself was unable entirely to escape
from this conception ; he continued to favour it, tracing
the social function of the rural commune in Russia.

In general Tshernyshevsky was a convinced Occi-
dentalism He used to say of the Slavophiles : " Their
sight is so peculiarly constituted that any Russian filth
they may see appears to them excellent, and admirably
suited to reanimate moribund Europe." He severely
criticized Herzen's opinion concerning " young " Russia
and the " old world " of Europe ; protesting against
this species of national pride, of which Herzen was not
always innocent. Tshernyshevsky believed that Europe
has nothing to learn from Russia, because " she herself
understands better than we what new conditions she
has need of, and the way to create them." But on the
subject of the mir Tshernyshevsky agreed both with
Herzen and certain of the Slavophiles, who asserted
that that which in the West was still an aspiration had
in reality already passed away in Russia, because the
Russian rural commune succeeds in reconciling the
principle of individuality with the interests of the com-
munity. He, too, asserted that in Russia " there exists in
reality what in the West appears to be a Utopia." In
Russia " the popular mass regards the soil as a common
possession," while private estates are not numerous,
and the individualistic conception of property is not
rooted in M the soul of the people." In the West the
dissolution of the rural commune has had the most
unfortunate results ; it has engendered pauperism and
poverty. So " we must not ignore the example of
the Occident, and must maintain the commune in
Russia." In the Occident " the individual is already
accustomed to exercise unrestricted rights over his
private property," and " the prevalence of a better
system in economic relations would demand sacrifices
there ; this is why it is difficult. Such a system is not
in agreement with the habits of a French or English

IDEALS 333

peasant." In Russia, thanks to the existence of the
commune, this moral and juridical obstacle does not
exist.

We shall see later on that the mir became the subject
of long and violent discussion between the two great
schools of Russian socialism which took shape towards
the end of the nineteenth century (narodnitshestvo and
Marxism). Now, this question had already been brought
into prominence by Tshemyshevsky and his contempo-
raries. Europe was not unaware of this. In the first
place, the first serious study of the Russian mir, in its
social and economic relations, was the work not of a
Russian but of a German (von Haxthausen), who
veritably " discovered " the rural commune in Russia,
and explained its full importance to the public. This
was in 1847. Tshemyshevsky and several of his com-
patriots and contemporaries were acquainted with von
Haxthausen's work, and found therein the elements of
a verdict upon the institution.

Then the Utopian Socialists, French and English,
with their schemes of " associations " of producers —
among others Louis Blanc and Robert Owen — led the
first Russian Socialists to seek for a practical form
under which they might install the " new social order "
in Russia. And as the method of capitalistic exploita-
tion was not then very highly developed, and as there
was as yet no industrial proletariat in Russia, they could
find no subject but the rural population. In this they
had to seek for a basis of association. They believed
they had found it in the mir.

Some European Socialists also shared this positive
appreciation of the Russian rural commune. This is
what Proudhon says in his posthumous work of the
communal ownership of the soil : —

" This form of ownership is essentially equalitarian :
in Russia the commune, which is regarded as sole pro-
prietor, has to provide each household with a quantity
of cultivable soil, and if the number of families increases
the division has to be modified so that no one is

334 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

excluded. This method is common to all the Slav
peoples ; it has been maintained in Russia by the decree
of emancipation - (of 1 861 )." r

Proudhon considered that " political economy itself "
can require nothing better than this form of ownership,
" which is contrary to inequality," and which, there-
fore, should be " regularized and confirmed."

I may remark in passing that there are other points
of agreement between Proudhon and Tshernyshevsky,
notably in the theory of economics. There is no doubt
that Proudhon exercised a certain ascendancy over
Tshernyshevsky .

But M. Plekhanov, in his work on Tshernyshevsky,
asserts that of all the great Utopian Socialists of Europe
it was Robert Owen who made the strongest impression
of Tshernyshevsky, and he explains this by certain
peculiarities of Tshernyshevsky 's. " By the nature of
his temperament, in which reason predominated, he was
inclined to sympathize with those of the great founders
of the socialist systems who were less guilty of yield-
ing to the temptations of fantastic imaginings. Thus
Robert Owen was assuredly more akin to him than
Fourier." 2

Plekhanov thus confirms what I have already said
in a more general form of the influence of English
thought upon Russian "nihilism." But it must not
be supposed that Owen's ideas could have received
a practical application in the Russia of those days, as
was possible in industrial England. It is only to-day
that Owen's ideas are guiding the effective action of
certain Russian Socialists, notably those who are
collaborating in the co-operative movement. For the
promoters of co-operation in Russia Owen has become
a guiding star. In the working-men's clubs his life
and work are studied and his precepts are taught,
while articles and pamphlets are devoted to these sub-
jects which find tens of thousands of readers.

1 Proudhon, (Euvres Posthumcs, vol. i. p. 89 (Paris, 1866).
• Plekhanov, op. cit. p. 302.

IDEALS 335

Robert Owen, like Saint-Simon and Fourier, has won
a place in the academic life of Russia. Professor
Toughan-Baranovsky states that the influence of Owen
is "an instructive and glorious page in the social history
of modern England." "The whole co-operative move-
ment of to-day is the result of Owen's propaganda.
. . . Millions of workers in England and all the world
over, who are at present deriving real economic advant-
ages from co-operation, have to thank none other than
the ingenuous dreamer Owen, who in his day was so
riddled by the scorn of the representatives of so-called
common sense, who were only too clairvoyant as regards
their immediate advantage, but were completely unable
to see into the future." *

But, I repeat, the practical application of
" Owenism " in Russia has only become possible in
our days. As for Tshernyshevsky 's time, the Russian
Socialists were able to adopt only the theory of
" Owenism." Tshernyshevsky in particular borrowed
from Owen a very important and wholly materialistic
principle : the impress of the social environment upon
the actions and feelings of mankind.

Still, Tshernyshevsky, like Owen and the French
Utopians, had retained a great measure of metaphysics
and idealism. He was inclined to explain historical
events as a rationalist. He believed that men had
been and were unfortunate because they were insuffi-
ciently " educated " and " conscious." It would, there-
fore, suffice to explain to them the justice and convince
them of the necessity of changing the existing state
of things, to win them over to a good " scheme " of
a new order, and the social problem would be solved.

This belief in the power of reason, which links
Tshernyshevsky and other of the Russian " Nihilists "
with the Encyclopaedists and the French Revolutionists,
played a great part in the evolution of socialist theory
and the revolutionary movement in Russia. If it is
reason which rules the world, who, then, is the master
' Toughan-Baranovsky, op. cit. p. 89.

336 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

in the struggle for liberty and the happiness of the
people? Not the masses of the people themselves ;
but the enlightened men of the country, the profes-
sional representatives of reason, so to speak. The
task incumbent upon the intellectuals in the socialist
and revolutionary movement in this way became one
of the most burning questions of the day, and Russian
socialism split upon this rock into two violently opposed
camps .

IV

In the general evolution of Russian thought in the
nineteenth century we observe a very significant change
in the attractive forces which our Occidentalists obeyed.
In 1830 and in 1850 they were chiefly captivated by
the abstract ideas of philosophy and metaphysics.
Nihilism gave the preference to the natural sciences.
But Tshernyshevsky betrayed a great interest in the
problems of sociology and history and economics. This
tendency became preponderant in his successors, and
the conflict between narodnitshestvo (Populism) and
Marxism, which almost wholly occupied the intellectual
life of cultivated society in Russia at the end of the
last century, was fought over problems of history,
sociology, and economics. Maxim Kovalewsky, an
ocular witness of the change of front, compares it
with the happenings in France at the end of the
eighteenth century. He says : —

" In a country in which political debates are un-
known, the discussions of the great problems of social
science, above all those which concern the present situa-
tion in a direct or indirect fashion, occupy a position
which they could never attain in a more disturbed
environment. It being the fashion to debate such
problems, everybody in our days is either a sociologist
or an economist, in speech at least, neither more nor
less than in France, a few years after the krach
occasioned by John Law, the famous Dr. Quesnay in-
spired the people who had recovered from their infatua-

IDEALS 337

tion for the system of protection by his doctrines of
free trade and natural economic laws.

' This is not, moreover, the only trait of resemblance
between modern Russia and the France of a century
or more ago. Like our grandfathers, the men of the
Constituent Assembly, the young generations in Russia
are steeped in the conviction that a new social era
is shortly to open. They believe that they are called
upon to facilitate its advent by the judicious employ-
ment of the scientific data and the social experience
acquired by the European Occident.

" These are generous ideas, which assuredly do not
merit the belittlement and animosity with which they
have been received by those who declare themselves
unmitigated partisans of the secular bases of our
economic system."

The analogy drawn by M. Kovalewsky between the
passion excited by economic problems in France at
the close of the eighteenth century and that observable
in Russia at the end of the nineteenth century is in-
teresting, but the explanation which he gives of the
Russian interest in such matters is insufficient. He is
not correct in saying that people became enamoured
of economics because the Government would not allow
them to meddle in politics. The interest in matters
of economics was due to two factors : in the first
place, to the fact that after the suppression of serf-
dom in 1 80 1 Russia entered upon a period of very
intense commercial, industrial, and financial activity,
which could not fail to draw the attention of all open
minds ; and in the second place, because economic
questions were inseparable from political questions, so
that at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning
of the twentieth century parties were divided on both
political and economic principles, a certain political
system being always attached to a certain economic
system ; and the adherent to the one system was neces-
sarily a supporter of the other. A narodnik belongs
to a given school of economics, and also to a given

22

338 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

school of politics. The term " Marxist " denotes not
merely a supporter of Marx's doctrine of " economic
materialism," but also a member of the Social-Demo-
cratic party.

These two beliefs — Populism and Marxism — literally
monopolized the minds of the Russian democrats before
the movement of 1905. The entire youth of Russia
was caught in the cogs of the theoretical conflict to
which they devoted themselves. Their divergences were
principally on account of the following points : —

What is the Russian type of economic development?
Is it identical with that of Western Europe, or different?

What, in particular, is the future of rural economy
and the mir in Russia?

What is the role of the peasantry, of the bourgeoisie,
of the industrial proletariat, and of the intellectual
world ? What, in general, is the role of the individual
in history?

All these questions, abstract and theoretical at first
sight, were in reality of great practical importance,
because the political parties regulated their programmes
and their tactics according to the response which they
received, which, of course, varied according to the social
mentality of those who responded.

Thus between 1870 and 1885, in the opinions and
actions of the revolutionaries were perceptible the
characteristics of the educated classes from which they
were exclusively recruited : extreme rationalism and
an exaggerated idea of the role of " personality " in
social life. On the other hand, these same men adopted
the thesis of Bakunin respecting the communist
mentality of the popular masses in Russia. According
to the resulting theory, it is they who are the conscious
upholders of the same communist ideal which is, so
to speak, innate in the masses of the Russian popula-
tion.1 They have, therefore, only to draw closer to

* An analogous idea is developed by Prince Kropotkin in his Modern
Science and Anarchy, in which he regards anarchy as a thing which
" does not come from the Universities, but from the creative energy

IDEALS 339

the people, to descend into the depths of the people,
there to carry on propaganda, distribute pamphlets, and
sow revolt.

Russian literature has kept the record of this great
attempt at communion : —

A passport, a wallet,

A baker's dozen of " publications,"

Sturdy legs,

Many places, many dreams.

Fields and meadows,

Clearings, the wealth of nature,

Empty roads,

The distress in the peasants' houses :

But in every house

Bread is ready for the " traveller " ;

Eagerly the people listen

The words of truth.

In the villages are gendarmes,

Fines, duties, taxes.

" There will be a revolution, little brothers ! "

One hears on every side as they talk.'

But the poetic records were fairer than the effective
results of the propaganda. In vain did the " intel-
lectuals " mingle with the people and summon the
peasants to M revolt " ; with rare exceptions the
peasants, to whom the agitators attributed " a collective
cranium," refused to bestir themselves or revolted
against the propagandists, tying their hands and pre-
senting them to the authorities. This revolutionary
campaign among the peasants miscarried, not, as might
be supposed, because they could not understand it, nor

of the people," and at the same time as "an attempt to apply general-
izations acquired by the inductive method of the natural sciences to
the appreciation of human institutions, and to divine, taking its stand
on this appreciation, the future progress of humanity along the path
of liberty, equality, and fraternity, for the greatest possible happiness
of each unit of human society" {Modern Science and Anarchy, London*
i 901).

' M. Mouravsky, Among the People (poem written in 1874),

/

340 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

because they were indifferent to " politics." The
majority of the propagandists did not seek to excite
the political susceptibilities of the Russian population,
but its economic aspirations. Many of them believed,
with Proudhon and Bakunin, that the labouring masses
have nothing to do wirli politics or changes in the
system of government. The germ of this theory is
to be found in Herzen's Open Letters to Linton, a
well-known English writer, in which he states that
if the Russian people one day revolts it will not be
to replace the tyranny of a Tsar by that of a Presi-
dent or a bourgeois Parliament, but to attain a " verit-
able and complete " liberty. This true political
nihilism, which puts all systems and all governments
into the same basket, reflects both the anarchism of
Europe and the indifference of the contemporary
Russian peasant. The " Bakunists " beheld in it a
proof of the communist mentality of the Russian people,
which, according to them, should already have under-
stood the vanity of all political transformations, so
that they would accept only a social revolution.

Russia's backwardness was reacted into superiority
over Europe.

The Marxists, who attacked the " anarchizing " move-
ment of the narodnitshestvo, were easily able to demon-
strate that the reality did not correspond with the
imaginings of the " propagandists," and that the Com-
munist movement, starting from Europe, was born of
the resistance of the workers to the capitalist system,
while the Russian peasants were still living in the
pre-capitalist age. On the other hand, the Russian
peasant, who readily accepted the idea of a " just dis-
tribution " of the soil when the property of the great
landowners was at stake, will have none of it when his
own property is concerned. Moreover, the communal
possession of the soil does not signify any sort of
actual communism, for while possessing the soil in
common the peasants cultivate it individually ; and
individually they profit by the product of their labours.

IDEALS 341

We must not, therefore, count on the " collective
cranium " of the moujik to effect a social revolu-
tion. We_must look to the industrial proletariat for J
that.

The check suffered by the "descent" of the intel-
lectuals upon the rural districts proved that the Marxists
were right.

But as between 1870 and 1880 the Russian prole-
tariat was as yet neither sufficiently strong nor
sufficiently numerous to inspire Russian thinkers with J

the hope that their aspirations were soon to be satisfied,
they preferred to choose another " shorter " way : the
way of conspiracies and of terrorism.

As early as 1875 a revolutionary organ {Nabat,
which is to say The Tocsin) protested vigorously against
the anti-State theory of the " Bakunists," opposing their
federalistic ideas by the idea of a centralized revolu-
tion, which would take the form of a coup d'etat.

"In the West, as at home," said the Nabat, "we .
observe two movements ; one is purely Utopian, federa- /
tive, and anarchist ; the other is realistic, centralizing,

and ' statist.' Failing the forcible capture of the
governmental power by the revolutionary party, no solid
or radical changes in the existing social order are
possible." * f

But the people were not yet capable of seizing %he '
reins of power. This was not an obstacle, as a
" revolutionary minority " might do so for the people.

" It goes without saying that the fewer revolutionary
elements there are in the people, and the smaller the
dimensions of its revolutionary energy, the smaller must
be its part in the realization of the social revolution,
and the greater must be the role, the power, and t^ie
influence of the revolutionary minority. . . . The revo-
lutionary minority, having liberated the people from
the yoke of the terror and awe with which the Govern-

1 Cited from P. Lavrov's The Propagandist Narodniki of the Years
1873-78 (Petersburg, 1907), p. 172.

342 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

ment inspired it, would provide it with the possibility of
manifesting its revolutionary power of destruction. . . .
The revolutionary minority, profiting by the destructive
power of the people, would destroy the enemies of
the revolution, and, basing itself upon the general spirit
of the positive ideal of the people (that is, on its
conservative energies), would lay the foundation of a
new and rational social order." '

The distrust with which the ideologists of this " revo-
lutionary minority " regarded the people was so great
that they declared that " never, neither to-day nor in
the future, would the people, left to itself, be capable
of effecting a social revolution. We alone, the revolu-
.jjnjTgjX-JQJD01*'^ might achieve it, and we must do
so as soon as possible."

The Marxist critics of this theory of the " revolu-
tionary minority " have pointed out the fact that it
is by no means original, but that its prototype is to
be found, on the one hand, in Jacobinism, and on the
other in the ideas and activities of Auguste Blanqui,
who also believed that a small number of well-organized
revolutionaries might, at a propitious moment, make
an attempt which would be crowned by success. And
the theory of the revolutionary minority is known in the
history of the socialist movement in Russia as Russian
Blanquism. But Russian Blanquism was more " Blan-
quist " than Blanqui himself. We know that
Blanqui, extreme revolutionary though he was, had
the sense to wait when it was necessary, and even to
restrain his more impatient comrades. The leaders
of Russian Blanquism used to tell their disciples : " The
people is always ready for the revolution. . . . Wait?
Have we the right to wait? We shall tolerate no waiting,
no delay. . . . We cannot, we will not wait ! . . .
Let each take that which he has, as speedily as may
be, and move forward ! "

■ Cited from P. Lavrov, op. cit. pp. 173-4.

IDEALS 343

The contributors to the Blanquist organ declared
any person to be a renegade who, belonging to the
revolutionary party, did not believe in the possibility
of an immediate revolution.

The Russian " Bianquists " sought to justify their
tactics by aid of highly original arguments. Notably
they asserted that these tactics were best suited to
the national conditions of Russia. Their leader, Peter
Tkatshev, expounded these arguments in his open letter
to Friedrich Engels : —

" We in Russia have at our disposal none of those
means of revolutionary conflict which you possess in
the West. . . . We have neither urban proletariat, nor
liberty of the Press, nor national representation. . . .
We cannot think, in our country, of publications for
the workers ; but even if they were possible they would
be useless, as the majority of our people cannot read."
But all this does not mean that the victory of the
social revolution is more problematical in Russia than
in the West. By no means I " We have no urban
proletariat, it is true ; also there is no bourgeoisie. No
middle class, in Russia, divides the suffering people
from the despotism of the State which oppresses it ;
our workers can only bring political force into the
battle ; the power of capital, with us, is still
embryonic." '

11 Our revolutionary party of intellectuals is not
numerous, it is true. But it pursues none but socialist
ideals, and its enemies are still more powerless than
it. . . . Our Government appears strong only from
a distance. In reality its strength is fictitious and
imaginary. It has no roots in the economic life of the
people. . . . Among you Europeans the State stands
with both feet on capital. With us it is suspended
in the air."

This wholly unreal and erroneous theory was matched
by equally erroneous and ineffectual practical applica-
tions : men believed in the possibility of changing
* Cited from Plekhanov's Our Dissensions (Petersburg, 1906), p. 47.

/

344

RUSSIA AND EUROPE

the system of government by means of conspiracies
and acts of terrorism. The whole of the close of
Alexander II's reign was marked by plots and attempts
upon the Tsar, who was killed on the ist of March
1 88 1. But the violent death of Alexander II demon-
strated in the most obvious fashion how useless were
the efforts of the conspirators and terrorists. The
autocracy emerged from the crisis not enfeebled, but
stronger than before.

But twenty years later, at the beginning of the
present century, we witnessed a revival of political
terrorism in Russia. The Revolutionary Socialist party,
which continues the tradition of the old narodnitshestvo,
makes terrorism one of its levers of action. It creates
M fighting organizations " and " flying columns," which
hunt down Grand Dukes, Ministers, Governors of
provinces, etc. But after some years of a highly
intensive terrorist campaign the political in-
efficacy of terrorism became obvious. More : we
may say that individual terrorism is more dangerous
to the party which employs it than to the Govern-
ment.

The tactics of individual terrorism weaken the effec-
tives of the revolutionary party, which loses its best
members, the most energetic and the most devoted ;
it weakens the organization and even the propaganda ;
for why waste time in organizing the labouring masses
if one can command an instrument so " effective " and
giving such rapid results as terrorism in the imagina-
tion of those who apply it? Again, terrorism offers
such scope to the agents- provocateurs that in the end
the whole organization of the party becomes a pla
thing in the hands of the secret police, which very
thing has happened to the Revolutionary Socialist party
in Russia. M. Bourtzev has shown that during more
than ten years all the central organisms of the party
were under the supervision, if not under the direction,
of a certain Azev, " the greatest provocateur in the
world."

IDEALS 345

The dismal history of the terrorist organization of
the - Revolutionary Socialist party, provoked a reaction
against the tactics of terrorism among the members
of the party itself. In 1909 (subsequently to the revela-
tions of Bourtzev), at the meeting of the council of
this party, some of the delegates declared against the
terrorist method, and proposed that the party should
officially renounce it. In support of this proposal they
employed the arguments which are always employed
by the Marxists in their polemics against individual
terrorism. They stated that terrorism was at one time
plausible, that " it was imagined that the political con-
flict in Russia was of a Titanic character — that is,
that it partook of the character of the struggle of
a group of individuals against another group of
individuals " ; but actually " when the political struggle
has become a class conflict " one cannot allow terrorism,
because an act of individual terrorism cannot change
the social system.1

However, the majority of the party leaders would not
admit this argument, and decided to retain terrorism,
if not in practice, at least in principle.

It must be mentioned (as I have already said in
Modern Russia) that the ** principle " of individual
terrorism agrees with the mentality of an intellectual,
because an intellectual, not participating directly in
the material mechanism of economic life, and being
" independent " of it, is very slightly sensible of the
bond between him and the social mass, is inclined to
oppose his " personality " to society, and considers the
phenomena of social life as the manifestations of indi-
vidual wills. Seeing in the social organization a com-
bination of individuals, an intellectual easily comes to
believe that one may alter this organization by
suppressing such or such a person.

1 See the report of the Debates upon Terrorism in the Council of the
Russian Revolutionary Socialist Parly, May 1909 (Le Socialiste Revolution-
naire, No. 2, Paris, 1910).

346 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

VI

To understand, the political mentality of a Russian
intellectual, we must have recourse to the works of
those writers who have formulated the social and moral
philosophy of Populism, above all the works of Peter
Lavrov and Nicholas Mikhailovsky.

" How has history progressed? " asks Lavrov in
his celebrated Historic Letters. " What has pushed
it onward? Isolated personalities. . . . Energetic,
fanatical men, risking everything and ready to sacrifice
everything, are necessary. Martyrs are necessary, whose
real qualities and effective merits are often far sur-
passed by their legend. They will be endowed with
energy which they did not possess. The noblest
thoughts, the finest sentiments elaborated by their
disciples, will be put into their mouths. To the crowd
they will become an inaccessible ideal, impossible of
realization. But their story will inspire thousands of
men with the energy which is necessary for the con-
flict. . . . The number of those who perish does not
matter. Legend will multiply it to an extreme limit
. . . the whole of social progress depends on the
activity of isolated personalities." "

The same idea is expressed by another eminent
narodnik, N. Mikhailovsky, in his work on The Heroes
of the Crowd. It is interesting to note that the theory
of " personalities which create history," which, in its
day, was popular in the West, receives a sort of local
colour in Russia. In particular, our narodniki assert
that in Russia the role of a " conscious personality "
may be much more important than in Europe. Why?
Because the social environment of Russia is more
uniform, less varied. Therefore an idea or an example
may have a great power of contagion in such an
environment. As we see, a defect is once again trans-
formed into a virtue ; the uniformity and the unim-

1 P. Mirtov (pseudonym of Lavrov), Historical Letters (Petersburg,
1870), pp. 108, 109, MI.

IDEALS 347

portant variation which are the proofs of a backward
condition become, for our narodniki, an advantage.

The problem of the role of personality in history is
narrowly connected with the philosophy of history in
general. It was especially upon this point that the
discussion between the narodniki and the Marxists was
centred. The narodniki declared that the objective,
determinist method offered by Marxism for the ex-
planation and appreciation of historical phenomena is
not sufficient, that it must be replaced by the sub-
jective or ethical method. A historian must be at
the same time a moralist, said Mikhailovsky. He must
not only establish the causes and consequences of events,
but must judge them according to its ethical and social
ideal.

This historical and moralizing " subjectivism " is in
reality merely a form of dualism in historical and social
science. We shall find this dualism again in the
Nihilists. Materialistic monists in the natural sciences,
they were spiritualists and dualists in the domain of
history and sociology, and in Pisarev we find almost
the same subjectivist conception of philosophy as in
Mikhailovsky. But Pisarev felt that the subjective
method as applied to the social science was in contra-
diction to the materialistic monism of the naturalistic
philosophy. Not knowing how to resolve this contra-
diction, Pisarev simply excluded the social sciences
(geography, anthropology, and statistics excepted) from
the domain of " exact " and positive sciences. Mikhail-
ovsky did worse — he sought to legitimize the subjective
and anti-scientific method in the social sciences.

The Russian Marxists believed, on the contrary, that
they ought to continue the materialistic tradition, and
apply it to the social sciences and to the philosophy of
history. HThey declared that ideals are only a forecast
of historical necessity, and that any attempt to construct
a social ideal outside this forecast is futile. Human
ideals are determined by social conditions, not by class
interests. Those ideals are justifiable and progressive}

348 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

which belong to the progressive classes. As the indus-
trial proletariat is a class of the future, and one of the
most progressive forces, it is the ideal of this class
which must be accepted and defended by all those who
wish to contribute to the progress of humanity. But
as the industrial proletariat develops and becomes more
and more numerous, powerful, and conscious as capital-
ism develops, a true partisan of progress and the revo-
lution cannot uphold in any measure an institution
which places obstacles in the way of this development.

From this point of view the Marxists pronounced
against all attempts to artificially maintain the mir,
while the narodniki even demanded a special legis-
lation to maintain it. The Marxists declared vain all
the socialistic hopes which the narodniki based on the
peasants, and easily demonstrated that the peasants
did not represent a single social class ; that in the
interior of the rural commune an economic differentia-
tion has come about, and a social conflict has developed.
They also oppose the idea that the " intellectuals "
constitute a separate social group, and assert that class
conflicts and class mentality are reflected in the ideology
of the various groups of intellectuals.

The conflict between the narodniki and the Marxists
was extremely violent. The narodniki interpreted the
economic determinism of the Marxists as a form of
admiration of capitalism, and accused them of being
friends of the exploiting classes.

The insurrection of 1905 put these two doctrines to
the test. The narodnitshestvo was divided, during and
after the revolution of 1905, into three different cur-
rents ; and this division very plainly revealed the weak
points of the movement. Its left wing, inspired by the
idea that personality " creates " history, and that the
laws of capitalistic evolution are not applicable to
Russia, adopted a sort of anarchism, proclaiming the
" maximalist " theory, according to which Russia might
immediately, without any delay, realize the maximum
programme of the Socialist party ; that is to say, might

IDEALS 549

bring about a social revolution and leapt directly from
the semi-feudal autocratic regime into the Socialist
Paradise. The "maximalists" began to effect the
M social revolution " by inviting the workers to possess
themselves of the factories and workshops, and by
forming " groups " which committed acts of terrorism
and expropriation. This movement very soon degene-
rated into simple brigandage.

The right wing of the narodnitshestvo, on the other
hand, assumed the character of a peasants' party, not
particularly socialistic, but extremely democratic as far
as its political programme was concerned. The Labour
group in the Duma and the " Popular Socialist " group
represent this tendency. The M Centre " of the narod-
nitshestvo, represented by the official organizations of
the Revolutionary Socialist party, remains the guardian
of the orthodox doctrine of the movement. Its pro-
gramme is an eclectic mixture of communal federalism
of a semi-Bakunist type and State Centralism, and
the naive belief in the " communist " sentiments of the
members of the rural mir and the desires of the indus-
trial proletariat. The disintegration of the party con-
tinues ; certain of its elements are inclining toward the
" Labourites," others toward the Anarchists, and others
toward Social Democracy.

As for Social Democracy, it remains far more united,
from the point of view of theory, than the narodnit-
shestvo. But in Russian Social Democracy there are
also internal movements. Even before the Revolution
of 1905 there were lively disputes among the Russian
Marxists . Some of those who had accepted the Marxist
doctrine afterwards found it necessary to " revise " it.
They renounced historical materialism, returning to the
metaphysical conceptions of Kant or of Nietzsche.
Many of the leaders of the Liberal movement in Russia
(such as Peter Struve, founder of the *' Cadet " party)
formed their present ideology by means of revising
Marxism .

After the Revolution of 1905 we witness a new

350 RUSSIA AND EUROPE

" revision " of the Marxist doctrine. But this time
it is not based upon the philosophy of Kant or of
Nietzsche, but on " Machism," that is, on the ideas of
Ernst Mach, a well-known Viennese physician. This
attempt did not meet with much success. The
" Machists " were received by the violent criticism
of the orthodox Marxists, and Plekhanov in particular.
Thirty years earlier the chief duty of upholding Marxist
ideas in Russia had fallen upon him, and he had
acquitted himself with the greatest brilliancy.
" Machism " recruited a few disciples among the
intellectuals, but the Social-Democratic workers
remained indifferent to it.

As to their theoretical opinions the Socialist workers
in general are far more stable and conservative in
Russia than the " intellectuals." From the moment
when Social -Democratic Marxism1 had penetrated the
labour world, it acquired a very strong position. Russia,
who gave to the world Marx's most powerful enemy,
Bakunin, has become, by the irony of history, in respect
of its Socialist proletariat, one of the chief fortresses of
Marxism. But, as I have elsewhere remarked, Marxism
and Russian Social Democracy are not identical in
German eyes.

The Russian Marxists are fond of saying that the
true revolutionary Marxism is a synthesis of three
elements : the dialectic philosophy of Germany, the
revolutionary practice of France, and the history of
economic evolution in England. Generally speaking,
the Russian Socialists and Revolutionists are to-day
divided, in the matter of tactics, into two schools u
those who want to M speak German," that is, they
recommend a gradual organization and a reforming
opportunism, and those who wish to " speak French,"
that is, those who prefer that the revolutionary impulses
of the popular masses should work out their own
destinies. The adherents of the " French method " are
in the majority among the more thoughtful elements
of the party. ^ ,

CONCLUSION

We have followed the development of the relations
between Russia and Europe, and the diffusion of Euro-
pean influences in the various domains of the material,
social, political, and intellectual life of the Russian
people. We have seen that the influence of European
elements in Russia is already several centuries old, and
is very extensive— more so, perhaps, than Europeans
themselves believe.

The facts expounded in the present work show that
the destinies of Russia are closely bound up with the
future of Europe. Not only in the sense that Europe has
struck indestructible roots in the economic domain and
the political life of Russia, but also because for Russia
the general type of life and historic evolution is the same
as for the West.

Of course, we cannot say that the Europeanization of
Russia is already accomplished. Economically speak-
ing, that is, as regards the forms of labour and ex-
change, it is already complete in Russian industry, and
more or less complete in Russian commerce. In rural
exploitation it is still very incomplete.

But it is especially the political system of Russia
which is out of date and too Oriental, and which con-
sequently offers a striking contrast with that of the
European States. At the present moment, then, it is
to the political system that the process of Europeaniza-
tion must be extended, in order to adapt it to the
economic environment, and to subject it to the con-
science and aspirations of society. This conscience is
well expressed by these words of Dostoievsky's : —

351

352 CONCLUSION

"We Russians have two countries: our Russia, and
Europe."

What do we need? That our country shall cease to,
be a European Russia and shall become a Russian
Europe. • This formula synthetizes what is good in
Russia and in Europe. Its realization will allow Russia
to work in common with other European countries for
the future of the human species.

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